Somatic therapy, also called brain stimulation therapy, is a category of biomedical mental health treatments that act directly on the brain or nervous system rather than through talk-based psychotherapy or oral medication. These interventions are typically used when other treatments (e.g., psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy) have not adequately relieved symptoms, such as in treatment-resistant depression. Major forms include electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), deep brain stimulation (DBS), and vagal nerve stimulation (VNS), which differ in invasiveness and the brain site or nerve targeted.