Abraham Zangen

Abraham Zangen (; born 1969) His group's subsequent research during the following two decades on Deep TMS has informed its clinical use in treating depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and smoking addiction, and in 2023 he led a study published in JCI Insight on personalized approaches to Deep TMS treatment selection. He earned his B.Sc. in pharmacology from the Hebrew University and his PhD from the Bar Ilan University (in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute) in Israel in 1999. He then completed a postdoc at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) until 2003.

Research Zangen studies neuroplasticity in the brain reward system, the neurobiological basis of depression and addiction, and the effects of brain stimulation on neuroplasticity in psychiatric disorders including depression, addiction and attention deficits. His research has been supported by grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), among other funding bodies.

Zangen and his team conducted multicenter studies leading to the BrainsWay Deep TMS system receiving FDA clearance in 2013 for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder with the H1 coil. Zangen has co-developed additional versions of Deep TMS coils, and in 2018, the FDA granted de novo clearance for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder with the H7 coil, and in 2020, the FDA granted 510(k) clearance for smoking cessation following a multicenter study with the H4 coil. As of 2021, over 100,000 patients worldwide have been treated with Deep TMS. This study bridged animal models to human applications and laid the groundwork for subsequent clinical trials of Deep TMS in addiction.

The MIT Technology Review reported that Zangen and his team were evaluating the potential for disrupting areas of the brain that are overactive in cases of addiction or Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

In 2018, the FDA granted de novo clearance to deep transcranial magnetic stimulation as a non-invasive treatment for OCD, after being cleared for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder in 2013 following multicenter studies conducted by Zangen and his team.

In 2020, the FDA granted clearance for a different version of this technology for smoking cessation in the wake of another multicenter study.

As of April 2021, over 100,000 patients around the world have been treated with Deep TMS.

In 2023, a comparative study led by Zangen validated the efficacy of two different Deep TMS coils for treatment-resistant depression. The study also indicated clinical and electrophysiological features that can be used to select the best coil for a given patient. According to Zangen, this study was an "important scientific step forward towards personalized psychiatry." Zangen has been working with BrainsWay on a multichannel stimulation device that can target multiple regions of the brain in different ways, exciting some regions and suppressing others. Moreover, Zangen provided smartphones to non-users (still available at that time), and followed the induced cognitive and electrophysiological alterations. The findings contributed to the emerging literature on the potential neurological correlates of technology-related behavioral addictions.

Awards and recognition

1998: Israel Society for Biological Psychiatry Award for Young Researcher 1998: Aharon Katzir Prize of Excellence for Ph.D. studies 1999: Israeli Society for Biological Psychiatry Annual Prize 2010: Sieratzki Prize for Advances in Neuroscience 2012: Complex Medical Engineering Award (Kobe, Japan) 2015: Juludan Research Prize 2019: Annual Innovation Award, Ben-Gurion University

Selected papers