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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Dec 19, 2025; 15(12): 111580
Published online Dec 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i12.111580
Published online Dec 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i12.111580
Exploratory analysis of symptom-specific efficacy of transcranial magnetic stimulation in adolescent depression
Wen-Juan Liu, Hai-Si Chen, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Affiliated Mental Health Center and Hangzhou Seventh People’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310013, Zhejiang Province, China
Wan-Lin Chen, School of Medicine, Hangzhou City University, Hangzhou 310015, Zhejiang Province, China
Co-first authors: Wen-Juan Liu and Wan-Lin Chen.
Author contributions: Liu WJ and Chen WL contributed equally to this article, they are the co-first authors of this manuscript; Chen HS revised the manuscript and provided expert consultation on the design of the study; Liu WJ, Chen WL, and Chen HS conceptualized the study and funding proposal, drafted the manuscript, and analyzed the data; and all authors critically reviewed the manuscript and approved of it in its final form.
Supported by the Hangzhou Medical and Health Science and Technology General Project, No. A20240472 and No. A20210156; the Plan Projects of Zhejiang Provincial Department of Science and Technology, No. 2025C01103; and the Major projects of Hangzhou Municipal Health Commission, No. Z20250275.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Hangzhou Seventh People’s Hospital, approval No. 2025-005.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from parents, and written assent was obtained from all adolescent participants.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The data supporting this study’s findings are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hai-Si Chen, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Affiliated Mental Health Center and Hangzhou Seventh People’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, No. 305 Tianmushan Road, Xihu District, Hangzhou 310013, Zhejiang Province, China. 834446096@qq.com
Received: July 7, 2025
Revised: August 26, 2025
Accepted: October 10, 2025
Published online: December 19, 2025
Processing time: 146 Days and 7.2 Hours
Revised: August 26, 2025
Accepted: October 10, 2025
Published online: December 19, 2025
Processing time: 146 Days and 7.2 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study reveals that adolescent depression consists of four distinct symptom clusters (subjective mood, impaired activity, somatic concerns, and anxiety/insomnia) which respond differentially to repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). The most significant improvement was observed in the subjective mood cluster, suggesting that rTMS may be most effective for core emotional symptoms. These findings are critical for moving beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and opti