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FDA OKs Brain Pacemaker for Depression
Duke Machesne writes "On Friday, the FDA approved a new therapy for the severely depressed who have run out of treatment options: a pacemaker-like implant that sends tiny electric shocks to the brain. The Food and Drug Administration's clearance opens Cyberonics Inc.'s vagus nerve stimulator, or VNS, as a potential treatment for an estimated 4 million Americans with hard-to-treat depression - despite controversy over whether it's really been proven to work."
Well, Tom Cruise is not entirely incorrect (although he's certainly insensitive, and somewhat insane).
The idea of depression being "due to a problem with the brain" is something of a misconception; of course it is one that has been promoted and reenforced by pharmaeutical companies.
Any mental state has a corresponding underlying physiology, but it really isn't correct to say one causes the other - to say the physiological state of the brain "causes" depression. Certainly when people become depressed that is associated with chemical changes in brain function. But cognitive behavioral therapy is (in most cases) as successful as drug treatment, and best results are when you use both. In other words, depression is cured by either changing thought patterns or by changing the chemical physiology of the brain, but really these two things are just two sides of the same coin.
To say that depression is a simply physiological disorder is misleading at best. Since all mental function is grounded in the biology of the brain, any mental state can be affected through a physical intervention, but that doesn't mean the state is "purely biological" or "caused" by brain function. For example, neuroimaging studies have shown that some of the abnormal patterns of brain activation you see in obsessive compulsive disorder change as a result of cognitive-behavioral therapy, that is, changing thoughts and behavior without drugs.
I find this theory to be extremely lacking. People don't think this way when it comes to treatments for heart disease, diabetes and things like that. Sure, some people should exercise more and lose weight to address their health issues, but there are some people that live unbelievably healthy lifestyles and still suffer from those type of ailments. Their bodies just don't respond to stimulus the right way.
I do not know why people insist the brain is any different just because we "think" with it. There is no reason to expect that the brain has some special property about it whereby it is incapable of a fundamental structural physiological problem that can manifest itself in negative ways such as depression. Just as someone who is born full blown type 1 diabetic could never produce insulin without some type of surgical intervention, it is logical to expect that there are people born with physical problems with their brain that will prevent them from ever being completely normal regardless of how much of a mental effort they put forth.
Just my $0.02.