A man who lived with severe, treatment-resistant depression for over 30 years is now in remission, thanks to a new brain stimulation method that targets selective areas of his brain.
The man reported experiencing joy for the first time in decades after the treatment. “He was crying and saying, ‘I’m not sad, I’m just happy. I don’t know what to do with these emotions’,” the study’s first author, Ziad Nahas, a psychiatrist and professor at the University of Minnesota, told Gizmodo.
Nahas and a team of researchers across several universities developed a personalized method to implant electrodes and precisely send weak electrical signals into brain areas believed to be involved in depression. By fine-tuning this stimulation using the patient’s feedback, the treatment has relieved the participant’s symptoms for up to two years. Their findings are detailed in a new preprint on PsyArXiv, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.
When depression resists treatment
The study’s single participant initially contacted the researchers while they were recruiting for a new clinical trial. At the time, he had been living with treatment-resistant depression for three decades, having first been hospitalized at age 13. Since then, he had undergone multiple hospitalizations and tried dozens of treatments alongside intensive psychotherapy. He had also attempted suicide three times.
Treatment-resistant depression is a common form of major depressive disorder that does not improve significantly after at least two standard treatment attempts, such as medications or therapy. In such cases, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)—which stimulates the brain using weak electrical currents—is often considered a next step. While ECT has been used for decades and can be effective for some patients, it fails for others.
In this patient’s case, brain stimulation had previously failed to alleviate any symptoms. He had undergone two courses of electroconvulsive stimulation therapy. The first was moderately effective, but the second and third brought no relief.
The problem is that most ECT studies stimulate specific brain areas based on a standard brain atlas, Damien Fair, a neuroscientist and professor at the University of Minnesota and a study co-author, explained to Gizmodo. That means that researchers don’t often know exactly which area they’re targeting, since everyone’s brain is different. “It’s a one-size-fits-all approach,” said Fair.
A tailored approach
To address this, the team developed a personalized stimulation method tailored to the participant’s brain. First, they used functional MRI (fMRI) to map the borders of his brain networks previously linked to depression. This revealed that the patient’s salience network, which processes external stimuli, was about four times larger than in people without depression, potentially contributing to his symptoms, Fair said.
... continue reading