Deep Brain Stimulation Treatment For 5 Days Can Cure Depression? Here's What Stanford University Says

By building on an existing authorized kind of brain stimulation, Stanford researchers believe they've developed an effective and quick-acting technique to treat challenging instances of depression. Researchers discovered that the following therapy, over 80 percent of patients improved. That's a considerably greater rate than those who were given a mock placebo.

Brain stimulation has emerged as a viable therapy option for depression, especially for depression that hasn't responded to conventional approaches. The main idea is to employ electrical impulses to counteract irregular brain activity caused by neurological or psychiatric problems. Different types of stimulation exist, each with its own intensity and interaction with the body. Some need permanent brain implants, while others, such as repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation, can be administered noninvasively (rTMS). Magnetic fields are momentarily applied to the head with rTMS, as the name implies.

How Brain Stimulation Works

The Food and Drug Administration (per Neuromodulation) has authorized rTMS since 2008 for patients who have failed at least one prior therapy. However, its success rate is low, with only roughly 14 to 30 percent of patients obtaining a meaningful remission. While it is safe and requires less maintenance than other types of stimulation, a typical single course takes around six weeks to complete, which is inconvenient for patients suffering from an acute depressive episode.

Traditional ways of treating depression, such as placebos, have failed. Hence, using brain stimulations to produce pleasant sensations has become increasingly popular in recent years. The basic idea behind brain stimulation is to use small simulated electrical impulses in the brain to interrupt the brain activity patterns connected to depression. The intensity of these electrical impulses varies depending on the severity of the depression.

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Stimulation Treatment For 5 Days

Scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine have been working to enhance rTMS in recent years. The Stanford neuromodulation therapy (SNT), as it's now known, uses higher-dose magnetic pulses administered over a five-day regimen. Experts try to imitate around seven months of regular rTMS treatment. The therapy is also tailored to the individual patient, with MRI scans utilized to determine the best potential areas for the pulses to be delivered.

Researchers, including Stanford's assistant psychiatry and behavioral sciences professor and study author Nolan Williams, conducted a short trial of 21 patients that received SNT last year. In a statement, they discussed that 90 percent of those who were seriously depressed obtained remission. That is, they no longer fit the criteria for an acute depressive episode. Furthermore, people's thoughts of suicidal ideation dissipated. However, the trial was open-label, which meant that both patients and clinicians know the treatment regimen. More thorough studies, such as a double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial, are required to confirm that any medicine or treatment truly works. That's what the team has done today. They published the findings of their new experiment, "Stanford Neuromodulation Therapy (SNT): A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial," in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Republic World said experts choose the finest potential sites in the brain for transmitting the signals based on MRI scans of individual patients in this Stanford procedure. The research findings, which included 21 patients, revealed that most of the severely depressed individuals obtained remission and were no longer classified as "severely depressed."

In another case, a gadget implanted in the brain of a 36-year-old woman called Sarah from California cured her of depression. She claimed that when she got simulated impulses in her brain, she came out laughing because she felt a joyful emotion. She claimed it was the first time she had laughed in five years after suffering from despair.

The success of these procedures might be a big advance, as experts think that therapy can eliminate severe depression. They observed that simple brain circuit changes could bring even people who have been suffering from serious mental illnesses for years back to health.