The influence of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on mood in healthy people is uncertain, as former studies show divergent results. Previous studies in healthy volunteers focused exclusively on the immediate effect of a single session of rTMS on mood.

The aim of this study was to analyse the influence on mood of a series of 9 High Frequency (HF) rTMS stimulations of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).

44 young healthy male volunteers were randomly assigned to receive 9 sessions of active HF-rTMS (n = 22) or sham rTMS (n = 22) over the left DLPFC. Each session in the active group consisted of 15 trains of 25 Hz starting with 100% of motor threshold. Sham stimulation was performed following the same protocol, but using a sham coil. The variables of interest were the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) which quantified “mood”, “enjoyment” and “energy”.

We found a significant reduction of the BDI score in the active group (GLM, p < 0.001) whereas no significant changes of the BDI score were caused by sham stimulation (GLM, p = 0.109). We did not find significant differences caused by active or sham stimulation in VAS scales except for the VAS labelled lively/gloomy immediately after stimulation. The active group was found to be more “gloomy” (p = 0.001).

Our data support the hypothesis that a 9-day long series of HF-rTMS of the left DLPFC improves mood, analysed by BDI in healthy young men.

Acid sphingomyelinase (A-SMase) is a glycoprotein that functions as a lysosomal hydrolase, catalysing the degradation of sphyngomyelin to phosphorylcholine and ceramide. Several lines of evidence suggest its central role in all three types of apoptosis. The activation of neuronal A-SMase has been shown to be important in the stress-induced apoptotic death of hippocampal neurons. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between the activity of A-SMase, hippocampal volume and memories function in healthy young volunteers.

The activity of A-SMase was measured in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 19 healthy female students of the University of Erlangen- Nuernberg (26,32 ± 3,95 years old, Body mass: 22,29 ± 2,63 kgr/m2). The hippocampal formation was outlined in high-resolution anatomical magnetic resonance imaging data. The memory function was assessed with the Inventory for Memory diagnostics (Inventar zur Gedaechtnisdiagnostik). Correlations between continuous variables were examined, using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient.

The activity of A-SMase did not correlate with hippocampal volume and memory performance.

These findings indicate that the activity of the A-SMase influences neither the brain hippocampal volume of young healthy females, nor their memory performance.