It could be a revolution in the field of psychiatry. Researchers at the University of California-San Francisco (USA) have developed a brain implant to combat the most severe cases of depression.
According to their findings, the device had beneficial effects on a 36-year-old patient with refractory, in other words, treatment-resistant depression. A phenomenon that affects 15 to 30% of people with this disorder.
The implant, which is meant to complement treatment and personal care, is supposed to be the first of its kind to show positive results. Previous attempts at brain therapy have already only failed.
The researchers noted that this new technology is characterized by the use of different stimulation of the brain. This time with convincing results.
Two-step treatment
Concretely, this treatment is carried out in two stages. The first is recording a patient’s brain waves to identify biomarkers, a chemical in the body that can diagnose or follow the course of a disease. It allows researchers to map a patient’s brain pattern and determine where depression symptoms occur. From this analysis, the personal follow-up of the patient can be traced.
The second step revolves around placing the implant and relating it to vital signs. The cycle of patient depression, associated with transplantation, forms a closed circuit.
According to this process, motivation is subjective. University researchers California San Francisco Try to identify and thus modify the depression circuit in the brain for each patient, in an appropriate manner.
However, while this technology may hold promise, it is still in its infancy and has only been tested on one patient.
Thus, other patients were recruited to deepen the experiment. Researchers are also studying whether a person’s depressive circuits may change over time.
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