Depression is a disease that affects millions of people around the world. Currently, no treatment appears to be truly effective against this disease. Despite this, researchers are not giving up. They continue to work on new treatments that can help beat depression.
Recently, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, made headlines thanks to the treatment they developed to fight it depression. As our colleagues from Science Alert report, it’s a brain implant. This implant has already been tested on a 36-year-old patient.
Sarah’s name, the latter suffers from severe depression since childhood. Until using this implant, no treatment had worked for his depressive disorders.
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Hope for the depressed
From a young age, Sarah received many treatments for depression. Unfortunately, none of them have been proven effective. However, things changed when researchers at the University of California developed the implant.
This implant is presented by scientists as a “Pacemaker.” Once implanted, it stimulates the patient’s brain deeply. According to researchers, brain stimuli can relieve symptoms of depression. The effects on Sarah were not long. After seeing the results obtained at the end of this first test, the researchers are confident. For them, this implant could provide hope for people suffering from depression.
Read also: 7 signs that you are suffering from depression
proven efficacy
Before placing the implant, the researchers first tried to identify the part of Sarah’s brain where her depression was occurring. Next, they identified a biomarker they used to personalize the implant. It was then set to stimulate only the areas where and when this biomarker was occurring.
The researchers placed an electrode in the area of the brain where the biomarker is located. Then they put again in the place where there is a file “Void Circle” by Sarah. This implant has been shown to be effective on Sarah.
“In the first few months, the depression subsided sharply and I wasn’t sure if it would last. But it did. And I realized that the device really increases the treatment and self-care I learned,” the era of the latter.
