If you’ve tried antidepressants, worked through trauma-focused therapy, or done both at once and still find yourself waking up with the same weight in your chest, you’re probably not looking for reassurance right now. You’re looking for something real. That’s why a dataset released on June 29, 2026 is worth paying attention to. BrainsWay, the company behind the Deep TMS platform, published results from the largest real-world analysis of Deep TMS in patients living with both PTSD and major depressive disorder at the same time, and the numbers are striking enough to have changed the conversation in psychiatric circles almost overnight.

What the Study Actually Found

The analysis covered 462 patients across 11 clinical sites. All of them had been diagnosed with both PTSD and major depressive disorder simultaneously, and all of them completed at least 20 Deep TMS sessions using one of two coil configurations, BrainsWay’s H1 or H7. This wasn’t a tightly controlled pharmaceutical trial with narrow inclusion criteria. It was real-world clinical data, which means the patients reflected the kind of complexity you actually see in practice.

The results, as reported by BrainsWay and covered by Psychiatric Times on June 30, 2026, showed that 83.5% of patients met the PTSD response threshold, defined as a 50% or greater reduction in PCL-5 scores, with an average 52% reduction in PTSD symptom severity. On the depression side, 66.6% met the response threshold and 27.3% achieved full remission, with an average 50% reduction in PHQ-9 scores.

You might be wondering what those numbers mean in plain terms. A PCL-5 score measures PTSD symptom severity across 20 items. Cutting that in half isn’t just a statistical milestone. For someone who’s been waking up in a panic or struggling to sit in a waiting room without scanning every exit, that kind of reduction represents a meaningfully different daily life.

Here’s a quick side-by-side of what the data showed across both conditions:

Outcome MeasureResponse RateAverage Score ReductionRemission Rate
PTSD (PCL-5)83.5%52%Not reported separately
Depression (PHQ-9)66.6%50%27.3%

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Here’s what I tell people who are surprised that their depression hasn’t lifted even after trauma-focused treatment: these two conditions amplify each other in ways that make standard first-line approaches less effective. Roughly 48% of people with PTSD will also develop major depressive disorder at some point in their lives. That overlap is associated with higher rates of suicidality, greater difficulty functioning day to day, and reliably poorer outcomes from the treatments that work fine when each condition exists on its own.

When someone has both, medications that target serotonin may take the edge off depression without touching the hypervigilance. Trauma-focused therapy like prolonged exposure or EMDR can reduce PTSD symptoms while leaving the low mood and anhedonia intact. Clinicians aren’t failing patients in these situations. They’re working with genuinely resistant biology. That’s the population this BrainsWay study specifically enrolled, and that’s what makes the response rates worth examining carefully.

What Deep TMS Is and How It Differs from Standard TMS

You might be wondering whether this is just regular TMS with a different name. It isn’t. Standard TMS, which has been FDA-cleared for depression since 2008, uses figure-eight coils that stimulate surface-level cortical tissue. BrainsWay’s Deep TMS uses H-coils, which are designed to reach deeper and broader brain structures, including areas relevant to both trauma processing and mood regulation.

BrainsWay already holds three FDA-cleared indications for its platform: major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and smoking cessation. PTSD is not yet on that list. The June 2026 data is preliminary and hasn’t yet completed peer review, which is an important caveat. These findings come from a retrospective study, meaning researchers looked back at clinical records rather than running a prospective randomized controlled trial. That design limits what we can conclude about causality. It also reflects how these technologies tend to move through the evidence pipeline: real-world signals come first, controlled trials follow.

What This Means If You’re Actually Considering TMS

Access and cost are the first practical questions, and they’re legitimate ones. TMS treatment typically runs 20 to 36 sessions over four to six weeks. For FDA-cleared indications like depression, many major insurance plans now cover it, though coverage varies considerably and often requires documentation of prior treatment failures. For PTSD specifically, since Deep TMS doesn’t yet carry that clearance, insurance coverage becomes more complicated and often requires an appeal or authorization process.

That doesn’t mean it’s out of reach, but it does mean the conversation with your psychiatrist or treatment team matters a lot before you start calling clinics. A provider familiar with TMS can help you make the case to your insurer if depression is the primary documented diagnosis, which it may well be if you’re in the 48% overlap group.

Here’s what I’d also say: this technology isn’t a replacement for the therapeutic relationship. The studies don’t suggest that. What they suggest is that for people whose nervous systems haven’t responded to medication or therapy alone, there may be a biological lever that hasn’t been pulled yet. That framing tends to take some of the self-blame out of the picture, which matters.

The Honest Caveats

The numbers from this study are genuinely encouraging. They’re also not the final word. Retrospective real-world analyses can reflect selection effects, meaning the patients who completed 20 sessions may have been more motivated, more stable, or better resourced than those who dropped out before the data was collected. The absence of a control group means we can’t rule out that some improvement would have occurred anyway over the same timeframe.

BrainsWay has clear commercial interest in positive outcomes, and while that doesn’t invalidate the data, it’s worth holding in mind as this moves toward peer review. The research community will scrutinize it, and that scrutiny is healthy.

What the data does accomplish is making it harder to dismiss Deep TMS as experimental noise for this population. Four hundred sixty-two patients across 11 sites is a signal worth taking seriously, and it will likely accelerate both formal trials and conversations about FDA clearance for the PTSD indication.

If you’re someone who’s been stuck, this news is worth bringing to your next appointment. Not as proof of a cure, but as a door worth asking about. A psychiatrist or neurologist with TMS experience can help you think through whether you’d be a reasonable candidate, what the realistic expectations are, and how to approach the insurance and logistics piece. You don’t have to figure that part out alone.

Sources

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute mental health, medical, or clinical advice. If you are in crisis or experiencing a mental health emergency, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988) or go to your nearest emergency room. Always consult a licensed mental health professional for care specific to your needs.

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