• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

Study: Personalized, closed-loop neuromodulation can (one day) become a “pacemaker for the brain”

October 5, 2021 by SharpBrains

Click image above to watch 2‑minute video explain­ing the study

Treat­ing Severe Depres­sion with On-Demand Brain Stim­u­la­tion (UCSF press release):

UCSF Health physi­cians have suc­cess­ful­ly treat­ed a patient with severe depres­sion by tap­ping into the spe­cif­ic brain cir­cuit involved in depres­sive brain pat­terns and reset­ting them using the equiv­a­lent of a pace­mak­er for the brain.

“This study points the way to a new par­a­digm that is des­per­ate­ly need­ed in psy­chi­a­try,” said Andrew Krys­tal, PhD, pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try and mem­ber of the UCSF Weill Insti­tute for Neu­ro­sciences. “We’ve devel­oped a pre­ci­sion-med­i­cine approach that has suc­cess­ful­ly man­aged our patient’s treat­ment-resis­tant depres­sion by iden­ti­fy­ing and mod­u­lat­ing the cir­cuit in her brain that’s unique­ly asso­ci­at­ed with her symptoms.”

Pre­vi­ous clin­i­cal tri­als have shown lim­it­ed suc­cess for treat­ing depres­sion with tra­di­tion­al deep brain stim­u­la­tion (DBS), in part because most devices can only deliv­er con­stant elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion, usu­al­ly only in one area of the brain. A major chal­lenge for the field is that depres­sion may involve dif­fer­ent brain areas in dif­fer­ent people.

What made this proof-of-prin­ci­ple tri­al suc­cess­ful was the dis­cov­ery of a neur­al bio­mark­er – a spe­cif­ic pat­tern of brain activ­i­ty that indi­cates the onset of symp­toms – and the team’s abil­i­ty to cus­tomize a new DBS device to respond only when it rec­og­nizes that pat­tern. The device then stim­u­lates a dif­fer­ent area of the brain cir­cuit, cre­at­ing on-demand, imme­di­ate ther­a­py that is unique to both the patient’s brain and the neur­al cir­cuit caus­ing her illness.

This cus­tomized approach alle­vi­at­ed the patient’s depres­sion symp­toms almost imme­di­ate­ly, Krys­tal said, in con­trast to the four- to eight-week delay of stan­dard treat­ment mod­els and has last­ed over the 15 months she has had the implant­ed device. For patients with long-term, treat­ment-resis­tant depres­sion, that result could be trans­for­ma­tive … To per­son­al­ize the ther­a­py, Chang put one of the device’s elec­trode leads in the brain area where the team had found the bio­mark­er and the oth­er lead in the region of Sarah’s depres­sion cir­cuit where stim­u­la­tion best relieved her mood symp­toms. The first lead con­stant­ly mon­i­tored activ­i­ty; when it detect­ed the bio­mark­er, the device sig­naled the oth­er lead to deliv­er a tiny (1mA) dose of elec­tric­i­ty for 6 sec­onds, which caused the neur­al activ­i­ty to change.

The Study:

Closed-loop neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion in an indi­vid­ual with treat­ment-resis­tant depres­sion (Nature Medicine)

  • Abstract: Deep brain stim­u­la­tion is a promis­ing treat­ment for neu­ropsy­chi­atric con­di­tions such as major depres­sion. It could be opti­mized by iden­ti­fy­ing neur­al bio­mark­ers that trig­ger ther­a­py selec­tive­ly when symp­tom sever­i­ty is ele­vat­ed. We devel­oped an approach that first used mul­ti-day intracra­nial elec­tro­phys­i­ol­o­gy and focal elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion to iden­ti­fy a per­son­al­ized symp­tom-spe­cif­ic bio­mark­er and a treat­ment loca­tion where stim­u­la­tion improved symp­toms. We then implant­ed a chron­ic deep brain sens­ing and stim­u­la­tion device and imple­ment­ed a bio­mark­er-dri­ven closed-loop ther­a­py in an indi­vid­ual with depres­sion. Closed-loop ther­a­py result­ed in a rapid and sus­tained improve­ment in depres­sion. Future work is required to deter­mine if the results and approach of this n-of‑1 study gen­er­al­ize to a broad­er population.

The Study in Context:

  • FDA clears deep tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion device to treat obses­sive-com­pul­sive disorder
  • Per­sis­tence pays off: After 8?year fol­low-up, study finds robust and sus­tained anti­de­pres­sant response to deep brain stim­u­la­tion (DBS)
  • Machine-learn­ing study finds EEG brain sig­na­tures that pre­dict response to anti­de­pres­sant treatments

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: biomarker, brain circuit, brain patterns, brain stimulation, closed-loop therapy, deep-brain-stimulation, neural biomarker, neuromodulation, neuropsychiatric, pacemaker for the brain, precision medicine, psychiatry, severe depression, treat depression, treatment-resistant depression

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 12,515 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2023 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy