title: Functional cerebral asymmetry in affective disorders: new facts contributed by transcranial magnetic stimulation.
abstract: A growing body of experimental data usually finds a slightly lower activation in the left hemisphere than in the right in depressive syndromes, whereas the opposite occurs in mania. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) seems to have a distinctive lateralized effect with manic or depressed patients. These clinical findings provide new elements for discussion of the significance of unbalanced hemispherical activation as a biological substrate in affective disorders. Based on these data and on the theories of chaos and complexity, a hypothesis for the physiopathology of affective disorders and the functional mechanism of TMS is proposed. This hypothesis is in agreement with valence theory.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Complejo Hospitalario GESMA, C/Jesús 40, 07003 Palma de Mallorca, Spain. magato@intersalud.es
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Garcia-Toro
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Montes
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Talavera
mesh_terms: D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D006801:Humans; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology