A three-day course of once-daily repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) added to standard care improved sleep duration and efficiency and reduced frontal hyperactivity within five days in adults treated for acute influenza, researchers reported in Translational Psychiatry (March 2026).
The analysis included 55 adults aged 18–40 treated for acute influenza between 2023 and 2025. Patients were assigned to standard care alone or standard care plus rTMS; a separate healthy-control group provided baseline comparisons. Each rTMS session lasted about 20–30 minutes and was delivered once per day for three days. Outcomes were measured with sleep studies, patient-reported sleep scores, brain imaging and blood tests within a five-day window; blinded reviewers assessed outcome measures.
Compared with standard care alone, the rTMS group showed faster improvements in sleep duration and sleep efficiency over the short assessment period. Functional imaging changes paralleled clinical gains, with reduced activation after rTMS in the right orbitofrontal cortex and left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex—regions previously linked to insomnia-like hyperactivity.
Blood markers tracked with sleep and brain changes. Higher immunoglobulin M (IgM) levels and neutrophil counts were strongly associated with sleep impairment and structural brain differences, which the authors present as candidate links in an immune–brain pathway connecting influenza to acute sleep disruption.
The paper notes key limitations: the study was nonrandomized, sample size was modest (n=55), and participants were limited to healthy adults aged 18–40. Authors call for larger randomized trials across broader age ranges and comorbidity profiles to confirm efficacy and define treatment targets.
rTMS uses targeted magnetic pulses to modulate cortical activity and is already cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for major depressive disorder. The current study provides early, short-term evidence that rTMS may quickly modulate both brain activity and sleep outcomes tied to acute influenza, but randomized data are still needed to establish clinical use in this indication.
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Tags: rTMS, influenza, sleep disturbance, neuroimaging, immune biomarkers
Topics: Non-invasive brain stimulation, Neuromodulation, Sleep technology