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Written by Stephen Beech / SWNS
This exciting new study indicates that zapping parts of the brain with electricity could dramatically ease the symptoms of depression.
Researchers say they have found in the brain an "effective target" for electrical stimulation to improve the mood of patients with mental disorders.
Their findings, published in the journal Current biology, show that stimulation of a region of the brain called lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) reliably produces "acute" improvements.
The effects were not observed in patients with no symptoms of mood, which, according to the researchers, suggests that brain stimulation helps normalize activity in Neural circuits related to mood.
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Dr. Kristin Sellers, from the University of California at San Francisco, said, "Patients said things like" Wow, I feel better, "" I feel less anxious "and" I feel calm, cool and collected. And anecdotally, you can see improvements in the body language of patients. They smiled, they straightened up, they started talking faster and naturally. "
She added that "although the OFC is a more superficial target, it shares rich interconnections with several brain regions involved in the treatment of emotions," which has made the relatively small brain area an attractive target for therapeutic stimulation.
A team led by Sellers and Dr. Vikram Rao in Professor Edward Chang's laboratory studied 25 epilepsy patients who had electrodes placed in the brain for medical reasons to determine the origin of their seizures .
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A large number of patients also suffered from depression, often seen in people with epilepsy.
With the agreement of the patients, the team of Prof. Chang took advantage of the electrodes to deliver small electrical impulses to the areas of the brain that are thought to play a role in regulating mood. The researchers then used implanted electrodes to stimulate OFC and other brain regions while collecting reports on verbal mood and questionnaire scores.
"The stimulation induced a pattern of activity in areas of the brain connected to the OFC, similar to the patterns seen when patients naturally exhibited positive mood states," Rao said. "Our findings suggest that OFC is a promising new target of stimulation for the treatment of mood disorders."
Previous studies have explored deep brain stimulation (DBS) for mood disorders, but its success depends decisively on target selection because targets in other, more profound, mood-related areas of the brain, have not always allowed reliable improvements.
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For the new study, however, researchers focused their attention and electrical stimulation on OFC, which is a key focus for mood-related circuits.
Chang said, "OFC has been described as a less-understood brain region, but it is richly connected to various brain structures related to mood, depression, and decision-making, which makes it makes it very well placed to coordinate activities between emotion and cognition. "
The researchers said their findings demonstrate that mood can be immediately improved by electrical stimulation of a relatively small brain area, but they also provide evidence that mood disorders are the result of a dysfunction of the brain circuits – but they still have a lot to do before the DBS could enter routine clinical practice.
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Rao said: "In the end, it would be ideal that activity in the brain circuits related to the mood can be normalized indefinitely without the need for patients to do anything."
Dr. Heather Dawes, who helped oversee the research, added, "The more we understand depression at this level of brain circuitry, the more options we can have to offer patients effective treatments with low risk. side effects.
"Maybe by understanding how badly these emotional circuits go, we can even one day help the brain to" unlearn "depression."
Give your friends a positive boost by sharing the good news with social media – Photo by Allan Ajifo, CC
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