Our Daily Show! With CJ: Bunker Hill Chamber, The Happy Pickle, NexGen, and Precision TMS!
CREVE COEUR – Precision TMS is exploring new ways to treat depression.
Located in Creve Coeur, Missouri, Precision TMS offers transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive procedure where magnets stimulate the brain. TMS has been approved to treat depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Tom Malone, CEO of Precision TMS, wants to help patients recover through TMS and ketamine treatments. He is curious to learn more about how psychedelics can treat psychiatric conditions, and he noted that President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that will allow for more research into these drugs.
“Psychedelics have had such a bad stigma since the 60s and 70s,” Malone said. “I really prefer to call them neurogenesis promoters, because that’s what they’re doing. It’s promoting neurogenesis. It’s promoting new synapses forming, and it can be really helpful.”
He noted that psychedelics were classified as a Schedule I drug during Richard Nixon’s presidency, and Malone disagrees that these substances have no medicinal use. He pointed out that there are a few clinics in Mexico where patients are treated with psychedelics like psilocybin and ibogaine, and they often have good results.
Malone compares TMS and psychedelic treatments to metalworking. He believes, much like heat and tools can reshape metal, these treatments can reshape how the brain works.
“Say you’re a metalworker. You have this piece of metal you want to create into a certain shape. The psychedelic is kind of heating up that metal,” he explained. “You heat up the metal with these psychedelics, whether it’s ketamine, esketamine, psilocybin, and then you can kind of hammer out the shape with TMS. With TMS, you can target specific circuits in the brain that are responsible for these conditions.”
Malone has spent much of his career studying traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans. He has found that TMS and ketamine treatments have a high success rate for these community members. Precision TMS even offers a special deal for first responders, veterans, teachers and healthcare workers through their HEROES Program.
Malone added that Precision TMS treats severe psychiatric conditions and suicidality “like the emergency it is” and will work with patients to get them in as soon as possible. He has found that these treatments can help people in major ways.
Though psychedelics and drugs like ketamine and esketamine don’t have the same medicinal reputation as antidepressants, Malone believes these substances could make a major difference in the lives of people who are struggling with depression and other psychiatric conditions. He looks forward to reading more of the research that comes out in the coming months and years about these drugs.
“I always joke that Spavato should come with glow sticks,” he laughed. “No, we’re not really pushing for recreational use. This is really for people who desperately need it. I’ve spent my career studying TBI and PTSD in veterans. We’ve been looking for a holy grail, and I think we’ve finally found it with ibogaine and psilocybin.”
For more information about Precision TMS, visit their official website.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
This Featured Article is sponsored by Precision TMS. To get your business or organization featured on www.Riverbender.com, contact us at sales@riverbender.com.
