Deep brain stimulation shows efficacy for treatment-resistant depression
Deep brain stimulation to the superolateral branch of the medial forebrain bundle was an efficacious therapy for those with treatment-resistant depression, researchers reported in Molecular Psychiatry.
Christopher R. Conner, MD, PhD, a neurosurgery fellow at the University of Toronto, and colleagues used PET scans to identify brain metabolic changes 12 months post-deep brain stimulation (DBS) implantation in 10 patients with treatment-resistant depression.
“This PET study shows that we’re altering how the brain is functioning long term and we are starting to change the way brain starts to organize itself and starts to process information and data,” Conner said in a press release from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
The 10 patients in the study underwent PET scans prior to receiving the DBS implantation, 6 months after receiving DBS and again at 12 months. Of the 10 patients, eight showed a response.
“We targeted a bundle of fibers that leave this small area in the brainstem to travel to other areas throughout the brain,” Conner said in the release. “The PET scans indicated that this small target area has very diffuse downstream effects. It’s not one single effect because there’s not one single area of the brain linked to depression. The whole brain needs to be changed, and, through this one small target, that's what we were able to do.”
According to co-author João de Quevedo, MD, PhD, professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, a response to the DBS treatment means that a person’s depression potentially decreases by at least half.
“For patients with severe chronic treatment-resistant depression, decreasing our symptoms by half is a lot. It’s the difference between being disabled to being able to do something,” Quevedo said in the release. “Correlating with the PET image changes, our patients reported that their depression lessened after the treatment.”
Reference:
Deep brain stimulation to brain area linked to reward and motivation is potential therapy for treatment-resistant depression, study finds. https://www.uth.edu/news/story/deep-brain-stimulation-to-brain-area-linked-to-reward-and-motivation-is-potential-therapy-for-treatmentresistant-depression-study-finds. Published Aug. 19, 2022. Accessed Aug. 19, 2022.