Depression is frequently seen as a mental disorder and illness of the mind. However, scientists recent studies have refuted that the results will change how we see and approach the treatment of depression.
In order to determine depression symptoms objectively and choose the optimum areas of the brain to stimulate during therapy. Researchers used brain recordings from inside the skull to deduce how activity in specific brain regions correlated with emotions.
In their paper, which is accessible as a preprint and was presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in November last year, the scientists state that major depressive disorder “has enormous social and economic effects.”
A third or more of patients are treatment-resistant. Which are indicating that they do not respond to the standard first-line drugs. Other treatments are always being looked for by researchers. Including non-pharmaceutical therapies like deep brain stimulation and even electroconvulsive therapy, as well as psychoactive drugs like psilocybin and ketamine. But the biggest obstacle they frequently encounter is a lack of bodily knowledge.
How Can Now Scientists Decode Depression?
One of the trial’s patients was John. The scientists utilized their “mood decoder” to help direct the deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy. Where precise shocks to particular parts of the brain could help reduce his depression. That’s what ‘Hamzelou’ stated in report.
Following the placement of 14 electrodes across his brain. That includes 10 sensors for monitoring brain activity and four for DBS delivery. John spent nine days in the hospital while the scientists tracked how his brain activity and mood correlated.
Who Is John And How Scientists Learned To Decode The Depression?
John’s breakup with his fiancée had a profound impact on his life. When he was 27 years old, the breakup threw him into a downward spiral and caused his first depressive episode. “At first, all I feel is deep grief. you begin to have trouble sleeping,” claims John (not his real name). On the condition of anonymity, Aho spoke. His crippling anxiety, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts eventually drove him to try to take his own life.
John claims that he has tried nearly every antidepressant, antipsychotic, and sedative available before concluding that drugs didn’t work for him. Electroconvulsive therapy is also done, which is a procedure that stimulates the brain electrically on one or both sides, finally helping him recover from his initial depressed episode.
John is one of five volunteers who agreed to have a clinical trial involving brain imaging conducted on them. He got a total of 14 electrodes inserted across his brain at the beginning of 2020. He stayed in a hospital for nine days while neuroscientists tracked the relationship between his brain activity and his emotions using protruding cables wrapped around his head.
The trial’s researchers claim to have created a “mood decoder” that can be used to determine someone’s emotional state simply by observing brain activity. The scientists anticipate that by using the decoder. They will be able to gauge how severe a patient’s depression is and more accurately target the location of the electrodes to maximize the treatment’s impact on the patient’s mood.
