Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for Depression

I have previously mentioned about deep brain stimulation (DBS) that has been used to improve people's mood. With deep brain stimulation, implants are implanted inside the brain by doing brain surgery. A new study has come out showing that a deep brain stimulation implant targeted to the subcallosal cingulate gyrus was able to relieve the symptoms of depression in depressed patients. The DBS implant quells overactivity in that specific part of the brain by delivery of controlled jolts of electricity. This is more evidence that deep brain stimulation can actually improve conditions associated with brain disorders. Researchers at Toronto Western Hospital treated 20 depressed patients with the DBS implants. They found that 60 percent of patients had a 50% or greater reduction in depressive symptoms, while 35% went into remission (meaning they had no depression symptoms). This is a fairly high response for treatment resistant patients. It appears the reduction in symptoms was also fairly long lasting, which is a major benefit to DBS implants.

“Our research confirmed that 60 per cent of patients have shown a clinically significant response to the surgery and the benefits were sustained for at least one year,” said Dr. Lozano. “The underpinnings of depression are poorly understood and this therapy, although not perfect, offers numerous advantages.”

I still think that deep brain stimulation as a treatment modality will be fairly limited in scope. Brain surgery carries numerous risks, including death. So many people would probably pass at getting this procedure performed. I think that the new deep transcranial magnetic stimulation may allow non-invasive targeting of the subcallosal cingulate gyrus. Deep TMS does not require surgery so the risks are much less than those associated with getting a DBS implant.

You can read another good article about the various electric treatments for brain disorders here.