For decades, people living with PTSD have had two approved medications and whatever they could manage of talk therapy. This week brought word of a third option that is neither a pill nor another painful retelling. Meanwhile, a slice of Murfreesboro got a shot at $25,000 to keep its doors open, and more than 7,000 elementary school kids packed the Murphy Center on a Monday morning just to watch a basketball game.
A treatment built from each patient’s own brainwaves
A newly FDA-cleared PTSD treatment called Magnetic e-Resonance Therapy, or MeRT, reported 68 percent remission in its clinical trial. The best-performing medications currently approved for PTSD top out around 10.9 percent remission. The therapy was developed by Wave Neuroscience with researchers at the Texas A&M Health Institute of Biosciences and Technology.
The process starts with an EEG that records a patient’s brain activity, which an algorithm uses to build a stimulation plan specific to that person. A coil against the scalp then delivers magnetic pulses tuned to what that individual’s brain is actually doing, rather than a one-size protocol. Dr. Kenneth Ramos, who helped guide the study, described the difference simply: standard treatment covers the leak with a tarp; this tries to find and replace the damaged shingles.
The stakes behind that distinction are not abstract. About six percent of Americans will experience PTSD in their lifetime, with higher rates among women and veterans, and roughly 17.5 veterans die by suicide every day. Dr. Israel Liberzon, the study’s lead psychiatrist, noted that psychotherapy demands active, sustained participation that many people in crisis can’t give — “many drop out because it’s too anxiety provoking.” MeRT doesn’t replace that option. It gives people a second door when the first one has been too hard to walk through.
Read the full story at The Optimist Daily.
$25,000 grants headed for Murfreesboro storefronts
Pathway Lending is rolling out $25,000 grants to 15 to 20 small businesses in Murfreesboro, funded by Wells Fargo ahead of a new branch opening here in December. To qualify, a business needs a storefront or commercial space in the 37127 through 37133 zip codes and annual revenue between $100,000 and $2 million. Applications close November 17, and recipients will be chosen at random from the eligible pool.
The money can go toward operating costs, equipment, or building improvements — the unglamorous expenses that decide whether a small business survives its next slow season. Every applicant, win or lose, also gets free business coaching through Pathway Lending.
“When small businesses succeed, communities prosper,” said Kimelyn Harris of Wells Fargo’s Business Growth Philanthropy team. It’s a plain sentence, but it’s the whole logic of the program: pick a neighborhood, and bet on the people already building it.
Read the full story at Murfreesboro Pulse.
7,000 kids, one gym, and a season-opening blowout
Middle Tennessee opened its basketball season Monday with a 117-73 win over Fisk at the Murphy Center — the Blue Raiders’ sixth straight season-opening victory. The game doubled as MTSU’s Education Day, and more than 7,000 elementary school students filled the arena, staying loud the entire time.
Junior guard Quintero Barnett led the way with 24 points in his first Division I game. Penn State transfer Eli Rice added 18 off the bench, freshman Landyn Colyer pulled down a team-high eight rebounds in his college debut, and junior Jahvin Carter finished a plus-39 for the time he spent on the floor.
None of that changes much on its own. But a gym full of elementary kids watching local college athletes on a Monday morning is the kind of ordinary thing a town gives its youngest residents without being asked to — a glimpse of what practice and patience can turn into.
Read the full story at Rutherford Source.
Different as they are, these three stories share a shape: someone decided to bet on people who’d been underserved — by medicine, by capital, by access — and backed it with something concrete. If something’s going right in your corner of the Boro, we’d like to hear about it.