The why is obvious: It's #1 on Hacker News right now, and spreading like a wildfire across my social media. People love to hear about promising new depression treatments, because we all know someone who suffers from depression.

Strangely, most rTMS papers follow similar patterns: No control groups, small sample sizes, questionable methodology.

The methodological issues would have been trivially easy to correct from the start, so I assume the omission of control groups is intentional. I think it's geared toward generating publicity and drumming up grant money. The core rTMS technique seems to do something for depression, so it would be great if someone could translate that into a practical, sustainable treatment.