A woman with severe depression has been nearly symptom free for a year after a team of scientist at the University California -Francisco implanted a device in her brain to interrupt depressive thoughts with a burst of electrical stimulation. Her case was the first to demonstrate that highly stimulation in a specific brain circuit involving depressive brain patters can be an effective for of treatment for severe depression, which affects an estimated 5% of adults around the world.
The study on this treatment's success was published in the October 4th, 2021 issue of Nature Medicine and has been hailed as a landmark moment. The intersection of neuroscience and psychiatric disorder could pave the way for such treatment to become more common in the future, especially for those who haven't' had success with pharmaceutical treatments.
The treatment was personalized for the patients brain, scientists are hopeful that the treatment can be scale and replicated. Lead author Katherine Scangos, MD PhD said "There's still a lot of work to do". They need to look at how these circuits vary across patients and repeat this work multiple times. They also need to see if an individual's biomarker or brain circuit changes over time as treatment continues.
Two more patients have been in trail with hopes of adding nine more.
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