The goal of this clinical trial is to learn which treatment works better to help people with treatment-resistant depression stay well after they improve with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a non-invasive brain stimulation treatment. It will also learn about the safety of maintenance rTMS and maintenance quetiapine.
The main questions it aims to answer are:
Does maintenance rTMS help prevent depression from returning better than maintenance quetiapine? Do participants receiving maintenance rTMS have greater improvement in depression symptoms over time than those receiving maintenance quetiapine? What side effects or medical problems occur with each treatment?
Researchers will compare maintenance rTMS with maintenance quetiapine after all participants have completed the initial course of rTMS.
Participants will:
Receive an initial course of rTMS. Be randomly assigned to receive either maintenance rTMS or maintenance quetiapine.
Attend regular follow ups to assess depression symptoms with MADRS , assess overall improvement by CGI , and any side effects.
Provide blood samples at selected visits to measure brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that may be be linked to recovery from depression.
Be followed for several months to monitor whether their depression returns and how well they continue to improve.