Magnetic Psychiatry

I am skimming this week's TIME magazine, which notes an innovative treatment for depression called repetitive transcranial magnetic simulation (rTMS). As a complete illiterate of neuroscience, I chuckle that nobody is able to explain why it works (how it works seems to be just an elementary application of Faraday's Law: a changing magnetic field outside one's cranium induces an electrical current inside and some mysterious electrochemistry ensues). Since antiquity, magnets have always occupied a magic place in quackery. However, to harness the electromagnetic force to restore the delicate neurochemical balance of a human brain in a controllable manner is nothing but ingenious. I'm sure that quite a few NIH grants based on this method are ongoing to (literally) probe all the stuff inside a cranium (likely of a cute lab mouse somewhere).

As an aspiring (amateur) lexicographer, I am coining a flaky word electro-magneto-neuro-physio-chemistry for the brainiac shrinks.