MIAMI – As alcohol use and abuse continue to rise in the U.S., mental health specialists are working with new treatment approaches.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation, or T.M.S., is a non-invasive therapy that targets the frontal cortex of the brain, which is the center of decision making.
“When we are addicted to something our brain changes in this frontal region in a system called the emotional system or the limbic system. So all my actions and decisions are skewed towards the addiction,” said Dr. Antonello Bonci, Founder and President of GIA Miami & Vita Recovery.
Studies have shown that T.M.S. can reduce cravings and alcohol use in patients with alcohol use disorder.
The therapy has been approved for the treatment of depression when other first line therapies fail to work, but it is not covered by insurance.
And a new study by researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center is the largest to reveal racial differences in breast cancer genomic profiling in black women, which greatly reduces their access to targeted therapies.
“So if we are limited in our diverse representation population in studies where we even perform genetic mutation analyses, we might be missing what mutations exist within this diverse population,” said Dr. Neha Goel, first author on the paper published in JAMA Network Open.
The team at Sylvester hopes their work will be a wake-up call to develop diverse genetic studies to identify cancer-driving mutations in all populations.