Episode notes
In this second edition of the ANT Neurocast, ANT Neuro CEO Dr. Martijn Schreuder speaks with Dr. Jaime Adán Manes — consultant psychiatrist in Madrid and co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Connectoma Neurotech — about how non-invasive brain stimulation is being personalized to treat depression more effectively.
Trained in medicine at the Complutense University of Madrid, with a psychiatry residency at Hospital Universitario de La Princesa and a PhD from the Autonomous University of Madrid on the epistemology of psychopathology, Dr. Adán brings both a clinical and philosophical lens to psychiatry. He has published on the overdiagnosis of depression and the conceptual foundations of psychiatric practice, directs the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Unit at Veram in Madrid, and trained in non-invasive neuromodulation at Duke University.
The conversation traces his path from a very personal calling into psychiatry, through the realities of treating patients when a significant share of depression cases don't respond to standard medication, to the arrival of repetitive TMS (rTMS) in his clinic. From there, Dr. Adán explains the leap from generic scalp-based targeting (the 5-cm rule, the BeamF3 method) to individualized, fMRI-guided targeting of the point in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex most anti-correlated with the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex — the approach pioneered in Stanford's SAINT protocol.
He shares honest, real-world clinical experience, the open questions around why accelerated personalized protocols work, and Connectoma's mission to make precision TMS more effective and more accessible — including AI-based fMRI analysis, a project to replicate personalized-vs-BeamF3 targeting at a major Madrid public hospital, and work with La Laguna University to find the target using EEG instead of fMRI. They close on where the field is heading over the next 5–10 years: spatial and temporal personalization, individual alpha-frequency and closed-loop stimulation, EEG biomarkers to predict response, and the need for larger, harmonized datasets through collaboration across the community.
ANT Neuro's TMS neuronavigation underpins Connectoma's precision targeting in the clinic.
Note: This conversation is between two professionals and is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice. If you or someone you know is living with depression, please speak with a qualified professional.
Learn more about Dr. Adán's work at connectoma.com.