Belize International Institute of Neuroscience Highlights its TMS Machine

Last week, we took you inside the Belize International Institute of Neuroscience on University Drive, to find out more about their E.E.G. technology and the good it is doing for brain patients. Tonight, we take a look at a second of medical equipment at BIN that is helping Belizeans to address a number of conditions including autism, Parkinson Disease, anxiety and even depression. The procedure is called transcranial magnetic stimulation or T.M.S. for short. The T.M.S. machine uses a certain type of magnets to correct the brain. Doctor Andre Cervantes the Medical Director at BIN told us more.

Andre Cervantes

Dr. Andre Cervantes, Medical Director

“We have also gone into other types of technologies. Today we have gone into one in particular and this is called transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS for short. TMS falls under an umbrella of what is called non invasive brain stimulation. So, for example, you have in world of mental health or neurology, you have surgeries that exist when medications no longer work, like for Parkinson Disease, obsessive compulsive disorder, major depression that doesn’t fix with anything, they are working along the lines of Schizophrenia to see if it can work. But, surgeries of this nature are invasive. You have to open up the skull and put in a chip, an electrode, which is connected to a wire and be able to change the way an area of the brain works so that you can have improvement in a patient. These are very small number of people who go for these surgeries. But, it is being done. Non invasive stimulation, more specific TMS works with using a magnet. So, you create a magnetic field and it if you use specific magnet in different areas of the brain it goes changing, remember the brain has electricity, it goes chaining, remember the brains has electricity, it goes reeducating from the surface of the brain deep down, you go setting the parameters for the brain to go back to normal. It is like a refrigerator, you open the refrigerator and you have options, zero, one, tow, three, four, five, and six. Let’s say zero is off, six is the coldest. You can set your refrigerator to one. So, you can calibrate it back; take it back to where it should be. So, depending on the condition, if it is autism, if it is attention hyperactivity disorder, if it is depression, the person is very anxious or stressed out. If it is because the persons has restless legs, Parkinson, they have left over injuries from stroke or brain trauma, all these neurological or mental health conditions, this type of technology can help.”