Medical Xpress seems quite excited over the prospect of using “deep brain stimulation” to cure depression:
The study was led by Helen S. Mayberg, MD, professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Neurology at Emory University School of Medicine, with co-investigators Paul E. Holtzheimer, MD, lead psychiatrist and now associate professor and director of the Mood Disorders Service, Dartmouth Medical School, and neurosurgeon Robert E. Gross, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Departments of Neurosurgery and Neurology at Emory.
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DBS uses high-frequency electrical stimulation targeted to a predefined area of the brain specific to the particular neuropsychiatric disorder. Here, each study participant was implanted with two thin wire electrodes, one on each side of the brain. The other end of each wire was connected under the skin of the patient’s neck to a pulse generator implanted in the chest – similar to a pacemaker – that directs the electrical current.
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A significant decrease in depression and increase in function were associated with continuing stimulation. Remission and response rates were 18 percent and 41 percent after 24 weeks; 36 percent and 36 percent after one year and 58 percent and 92 percent after two years of active stimulation. Patients who achieved remission did not experience a spontaneous relapse.
Outcomes were similar for major depressive disorder or bipolar II disorder.