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

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…

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Reinventing depression treatment via transcranial magnetic brain stimulation (TMS)

___ Stan­ford researchers devise treat­ment that relieved depres­sion in 90% of par­tic­i­pants in small study (press release): “A new form of mag­net­ic brain stim­u­la­tion rapid­ly relieved symp­toms of severe depres­sion in 90% of par­tic­i­pants in a small study con­duct­ed by researchers at the Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine … In tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion, elec­tric currents…

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Ethical issues raised around deep brain stimulation (DBS) research

Researchers grap­ple with the ethics of test­ing brain implants (Sci­ence): “In 2003, neu­rol­o­gist Helen May­berg of Emory Uni­ver­si­ty in Atlanta began to test a bold, exper­i­men­tal treat­ment for peo­ple with severe depres­sion, which involved implant­i­ng met­al elec­trodes deep in the brain in a region called area 25. The ini­tial data were promis­ing; even­tu­al­ly, they convinced…

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Next: Targeted neurotechnology to augment–perhaps even take over–neuropharmacology

Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy offers new solu­tions to treat­ing brain dis­eases (Dell Tech Cul­ture): “A new wave of med­ical tech­nolo­gies is chang­ing the way we approach study­ing the brain and treat­ing patients suf­fer­ing from neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­eases and men­tal ill­ness. For peo­ple suf­fer­ing from Parkinson’s, epilep­sy, OCD and severe depres­sion, these tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments are 

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