fMRI Neurofeedback as Treatment for Depression

We urgently need new therapeutic strategies for depression (1). Depression is one of the top three causes of disability in the global disease burden statistic, affecting up to 15% of the population of high-income countries and with increasing prevalence also in low- and middle-income countries. This comes at huge socioeconomic and healthcare costs, especially because a large number of patients develop chronic illness, regardless of the available treatments that are effective for the majority of patients. The mainstay of current management are pharmacological and psychological/psychosocial interventions, and recent innovation has been particularly active in the field of physical interventions, adding transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the repertoire.