Summary of a news release from UCLA Health, February 23, 2026
Standard TMS for depression usually means a clinic visit every weekday for six weeks or more, which can be hard for many patients to manage. Researchers at UCLA Health looked at whether a condensed schedule of five sessions a day for five days (known as “5×5”) could work as well.
The study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, compared 175 patients with treatment-resistant depression. 135 received conventional daily TMS for six weeks, and 40 received the five-day accelerated course. Both groups showed meaningful reductions in depression symptoms, with no statistically significant difference between them. Some patients in the accelerated group who showed little change right after treatment improved in the following two to four weeks, with an average 36% drop in depression scores. So a slow early response doesn’t necessarily mean the treatment hasn’t worked.
The study was led by Michael Apostol of the UCLA Semel Institute, with senior author Andrew Leuchter, M.D., director of UCLA’s TMS Service. The authors noted that patients were not randomly assigned and that the standard six-week course still did better on some longer-term measures, so larger controlled trials are needed.
Read the full article: A depression treatment that once took eight weeks may work just as well in one, UCLA Health, February 23, 2026. Study in the Journal of Affective Disorders.