Towards Personalised Medicine: Individualised fMRI targeting of rTMS treatment for auditory hallucinations

The proposed research will serve as a proof of principle study exploring a novel functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) protocol that my mentors and I have developed for personalised targeting of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) treatment. I have conducted preliminary analyses to validate our fMRI approach which has not been previously used in rTMS treatment for auditory hallucinations (AHs) literature. The timing of this work is opportune as our protocol, developed to improve targeting of rTMS treatment, is based on insights from recent studies on functional connectivity (FC) in AHs. Through this work, I will demonstrate methodological feasibility and establish an effect size for a larger, sham-controlled trial.