treatment-resistant depression

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

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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.” [Read more…] about Study: Per­son­al­ized, closed-loop neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion can (one day) become a “pace­mak­er for the brain”

Neuroengineering meets neuroethics to address treatment-resistant depression

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Dr. Maryam Shanechi. Cred­it: USC Viterbi

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Is This the Future of Men­tal Health? (USC Viter­bi School of Engineering):

“Brain–machine inter­faces (BMIs) pro­vide a direct path­way to the brain to trans­late brain sig­nals into actions … Below, Shanechi (Note: Maryam Shanechi, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor of elec­tri­cal and com­put­er engi­neer­ing) answers some ques­tions about her work and what the future might hold for our under­stand­ing and treat­ment of men­tal disorders.

What poten­tial does this hold for the future not just of men­tal health, but of under­stand­ing our brains as a whole?

Neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders are a major cause of dis­abil­i­ty world­wide with depres­sive dis­or­ders being the most dis­abling among them. About 30% of major depres­sion patients are treat­ment-resis­tant – that’s about 5 mil­lion peo­ple in the US alone. [Read more…] about Neu­ro­engi­neer­ing meets neu­roethics to address treat­ment-resis­tant depression