Jason Thompson:
So my name is Jason Thompson. I am the director of TMS and Neuromodulation. DTMS stands for Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Deep as in deep penetrating into the brain, transcranial through the scalp into the brain, magnetic as in waves, and stimulation because that’s what we’re inducing.
Neuromodulation is the ability to manipulate the neuroplasticity of the brain, and it’s the electronic impulses or how the brain communicates. Everything in your body is derived or based on electronic impulses synapse. Whether you’re hungry, you’re tired, you’re sad, there is an impulse that directs your body on what to do. And then just the opposite, there is a reaction or a release of neurotransmitters to kind of keep a homeostatic balance for yourself.
So the reason that you need tools is to really create a balance back in individuals. With TMS and what we’re doing here at the lodge is to combat depression, anxiety, OCD, and other neuroses. For whatever reason, your body has deemed something traumatic and the communication or that balance is no longer there, and that’s the variable, that’s what’s different for everybody. It could be years of medications, no medications, improper medications, something physical, something emotional, and that’s what’s different from person to person to person.
And so what we’re able to do is harness the power of an MRI magnet in the helmets and specifically direct it into the part of the brain that needs the stimulation. And when we’re talking about neurosis, when we’re talking about depression, anxiety, OCD, things like that, it’s the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and we’re literally just kind of supplementing it and boosting the signal if you will. So that the body kind of goes, “I know what’s going on. I know what to do.” And it can release the neurotransmitters with dopamine and serotonin to help regulate the body back out.
Anybody who’s willing to get the help I’m very confident of what TMS can do and what we can achieve for that individual. There’s not an individual that walks in here that I am kind of hesitant on. There’s no question in my mind that I can get them better. Typically, you see one of two types of individuals that come in for TMS. One that years and years of medication therapy just hasn’t worked and they’re the proverbial sick and tired of sick and tired, and at this point in time, they’re willing to try anything.
And then you have an individual who either has experienced or is just open to different concepts than the traditional, “Take a pill and you’ll feel better.” And they seem to experience results a little bit quicker, just because they’re open to it and I think that they’re looking for the differences or the smaller nuances of change.
