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Treating Depression With Electrodes Inside the Brain
cowtamer writes "CNN has a writeup on a method of treating depression with implanted electrodes. If this works, we may be seeing a lot more of this type of technology in the future. '[The patients] were lightly sedated when the holes were drilled and the electrodes implanted, but they were awake to describe what they experienced. Several patients reported profound changes just minutes after the stimulator was turned on. One said the room suddenly seemed brighter and colors were more intense. Another described heightened feelings of connectedness and a disappearance of the void.' While I haven't looked into any of the academic literature on this, it seems that yet another Larry Niven Prediction has come true!"
It'll be interesting when people start getting this surgery as a performance enhancing drug.
Though, I worry about the "drive by" hackings.
Quartz Extreme and Core Image. Are there any other real reasons to spend all that money on generic hardware?
I need electrodes for depression like I need several holes drilled in my head.
Yes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminal_Man
I'd love to try this. Unfortunately I'm an American and don't have health insurance. I'm sure the VA (my only "provider") probably won't get it for a long time.
The new all-purpose excuse.
In addition to people crossing the street while yakking in their phones, college kids texting while walking, and crazed bicyclists weaving through city traffic while sipping Red Bull, we might have to start dodging people standing on the sidewalk saying, "Charging.... charging... charging...."
I can't be the only person who remembers Stimpy's Happy Helmet.
On the one hand, I have long suffered from depression that resists all treatment. Some days, it is literally a fight to want to live just for that day, and the only thing that keeps me from suicide is the knowledge that my friends (the few I have) and family (who have mostly rejected me altogether at this point) would blame themselves. I don't think many people understand just how devastating Depression can be -- it can literally take away everything you value in life. The worst part is the blame: the attitude that, if you just "wanted" to be different, you would be. If this treatment could actually cure my depression, I would have to "go for it".
On the other hand, I remember reading Terminal Man by Michael Chrichton, in which a similar technique was used to treat Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. The subject grew addicted to the stimulation from the computer, and literally turned into a homicidal maniac.
What's with the current trolling wave on Slashdot? At least they could sign, like the GNAA did.
Me thinks they are missing the point.
Aside from genetic tendencies, depression is typically a form of feedback from your environment not being 'right' for you. And I am not talking about ecosystems here.
So, while it is a scientific triumph (huzzah!) to find a temporary way to get around depression by sticking a wire in your brain, it's not one we should readily consider. Instead, we should focus on a more permanent solution, that of removing people from environments that would necessitate putting an electrode in their brains.
On a separate note, I am surprised at the number of psychs / etc. who prescribe pills in preference to telling their patients that they need to quit their job / move somewhere else. Sometimes the solution isn't a bunch of SSRIs, it's moving to another state (across country), or quitting an abusive job.
I am John Hurt.
Yet without any of the customary safety we come to expect by using natural compounds! Where can I sign up to have my head drilled into rather than trusting the wisdom of the ancients?!
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Am I the only one for whom the video abruptly ends about a minute and a half in?
toresbe
im ready hook me up. the matrix will give me everything i need.
As an obvious example, Roosevelt took Stalin more or less at face value whereas Churchill was (quite rightly) deeply suspicious of him.
If you take a non-rational depressive and move him or her to another job on the far side of the country, you will now have a rational depressive feeling even worse off because everything is new and unfamiliar. That is likely actually to increase suicide risk.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Larry Niven as well. Ringworld Engineers. 1980.
And in the other direction as well -- The Sirens of Titan. :-)
There are lots of stories with direct brain-stimulation hooks (so to speak). All the same, I'll let Caol Ila brighten my days
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
...going for a walk. A good walk works wonders and is a little less extreme than electrodes in the brain. That said, my depression was a side effect of a long term illness and the walking may have had other health benefits that improved my mindset.
That said, walking might not be a great idea if you'd lost your job, sold your car, etc. etc...
leucotomy
Wireheads on the horizon.
Darwin at work.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
One said the room suddenly seemed brighter and colors were more intense. Another described heightened feelings of connectedness and a disappearance of the void
LSD is cheaper, and you don't need any extra holes in your head.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Tho more bulky, the same results could be gained from electromagnets positioned properly to create small induced currents in various parts of the brain, and be non invasive.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They got the idea from Futurama?
as soon as they try to pass an airport security checkpoint...
Like many of the more readable writers, certain concepts were simplified. The "droud" in Niven's books stimulated pleasure centers. Doing this is different than relieving depression. Admittedly, the brains wiring isn't following such neat little concepts, but conceptually, relieving depression so you can feel normal is very different than seeking pleasure for its own sake.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
They're not even good trolls. Dr Bob, at least, got a lot of responses from people who thought he was serious. These trolls are so obvious that after reading half of the first sentence you know that the post will contain nothing of value. The only thing I can think of is that they're intended to make mods waste their mod points so that ones hoarded by shilling companies will be more likely to affect the relevant posts.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I've been suffering multi-year-long treatment-resistant and very disabling depression, fatigue and concentration problems. In my case the best thing I've done was really simple: changed diet (cut off all the sugar, coffee and baked goods, introduced more salo (lard?), raw vegetables, and supplemented with vitamin c) and done some exercise (but not too much). No meds ever helped me with recovery, and believe me - I've tried enough.
I'd recommend it especially to those who are skinny and who also suffer from digestive trouble like severe tiredness after eating bread (but not diagnosed with celiac disease).
Olds and Milner demonstrated (not fictionalized) direct electrical stimulation of rats' emotions in the early 1950s.
Or you could just supplement your diet with B-complex vitamins. Sometimes the simpler method really is best.
Caveat Utilitor
And now you can imagine. You'll be tuning in radio stations just by thinking about it. Solar storms will either make you feel like crap or really wake you up. Insurance companies will increase your rates because your now far more likely to be struck by lightning. You won't need a wireless presence indicator anymore, your friends will just ask you to home in on one. When the TSA scans you, the agents will call you a skull bomber. But, on the bright side, my hopes the wold will become a simile for 'Johnny Mnemonic' are closer.
Well, true, as long as we are counting blatantly plagiarized concepts.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Poor attempts at humour aside...
This is very interesting. A good friend of mine left her loving husband and two children, to then commit suicide. That sort of deep unhappiness affects more than just the clinically depressed. It can affect all their family and friends in drastic ways.
If there's a way to make life liveable, then good. Hope more advancements are made.
I'd probably write this in a private message, but since you've (understandably) posted as anonymous, and since others might benefit from this information, I'll post it openly. Private messages are welcome, should someone wish to contact me.
Before I continue, though, I have to ask something: I hope that those who read this will respect just how debilitatingly painful clinical depression (i.e. based on bad brain chemistry) is, and also how sensitive a topic it is, both to those who have it, and to those who don't understand it, and treat depressed people like garbage as a result. Truly, I can't imagine a more excruciating torture than having one's own brain be in constant, unbearable pain (in severe cases like mine, it goes beyond depression, into an intangible agony of the mind; and also manifests as severe, measurable physical symptoms). I honestly can't bring myself to wish such torment on any person or creature--no matter how evil. It can and does literally drive people insane, and in the face of this, I have a knowledgeable respect for those who decide that it's simply not worth living through any more such torture; those who haven't been tormented in such an ungodly way (yes, I do mean to imply theological conflict) can't even begin to understand the topic of depressive suicide, so I encourage you not to comment on it; simple kindness would be much more believable and meaningful. (I'm writing now about a possible solution, so please wait on such thoughts if you're having them.) I ask that any replies to this be respectful and not flippant/humorous. Thanks.
I've recently found an unconventional treatment that has helped my severe depression (featuring suicidal ideation), after having thought (for good reason) that nothing was going to work. First, so that you can better determine if this is something worth looking into, I'll give you an abbreviated list of things I've tried, without success. In almost every case, the medicines and treatments worked after about a month of use, then stopped working, then made my depression worse than it otherwise would have been. Notably, I also suffer from anxiety, physical pain (muscles, joints, skin), and ADD (among others). The most sensible diagnosis I've gotten is fibromyalgia, and it's reached a disabling state. (Of course, fibromyalgia is largely used as a diagnosis that really means "we have no idea what's causing all this.") Here's a list of failures, and example name brands (what DOES work is below them):
Tri-cyclic anti-depressants (Amitriptyline/Tryptomer)
SSRIs (Prozac)
Benzodiazepines (Xanax) (for anxiety)
(Atypical) antipsychotics (Abilify) (in conjunction with other meds, to enhance them)
Anticonvulsants (Lamotrigine/Lamictal) (for enhancing effects, as above)
Lithium (used to treat [type 2] bipolar disorder and mood swings)
SNRIs (Cymbalta)
NRIs (Strattera) (for ADD, and as an enhancer)
NDRIs (Bupropion/Wellbutrin) (for ADD, and as an antidepressant, and as an enhancer)
Amphetamines (Adderal; this was exceptionally bad, especially in conjunction with Wellbutrin; it caused a psychotic panic attack) (for ADD and chronic fatigue)
Azapirones (Buspirone) (for anxiety)
Electro-convulsive therapy (A.K.A. ECT)
The treatment that I finally discovered, and convinced my doctor to do some research on (i.e. look up as much info as possible) involves increasing the amount of glutamate in the brain--which is now thought to be a more "direct" influence on depression than seratonin, etc.--at least in the "tough" cases. This was discovered as a result of some doctors noticing the use of the street drug, Ketamine, for self-treatment of depression. (Ketamine has some serious/dangerous side effects, of course.) During trials, it was discovered that Ketamine (pain reliever), as well as Riluzole (used to treat Lou Gehrig's disease) and Scopolamine (for motion sickness and surgical nausea) were extremely effective in treating those with severe, "tough" cases of depression. Of the three, Scopolamine (as a transdermal
That actually sounds rather dangerous! What happens if the electrode malfunctions? Instead of treating depression, why don't we look for what causes it and an organic cure for it? I am not a big fan of symptom mitigation. Could it be the chemicals in our food? Could it be air pollution reducing the amount of oxygen getting to our brains?
The kind of depression we're talking about here is anything but "normal".
If you've not experienced it yourself, you should express your gratitude for that in some other way than being all snarky.
Your condescension is neither helpful nor welcome.
Now kindly STFU.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Defining the problem is a first step.
You are correct in your fist posit. It is not race.
It is a subculture matter, and I see no skinheads or Nazis standing around our thread so we can assume its not a race matter.
Hate comes from fear and we can see from the above post that the A.C. fears both gangsta culture and liberal culture.
Who can dispell the fear?
If fear comes from ignorace, enlighten him.
Find his sources, ask for citations to his fears.
Reframe the problem in a more realistic light.
Darkness is dispelled by light.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Decade? Try around half a century! Look up the experiments of Dr. Robert Heath who was doing this stuff since the 50's. Here is a quick Youtube video
Hell, Timothy Leary was once asked whether drugs were a bad influence on young kids, and he replied, "This is nothing. In a few years, kids are going to be demanding septal electrodes."
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Yeah, CLI's suck. Should have been given a Mac...
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I think maybe OP was trying to say that humanity isn't supposed to go about life the way it does now. i.e., under a fluorescent light 40+ hours a week, then in front of a TV for another 20+, etc., and that may be the source of depression.
~S
"If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron." -Spider Robinson
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
That's precisely Zontar's point. Most people think there's a "source" or "cause", and if you just remove that source or cause, the depression goes away. Doesn't work that way, at all. Clinical depression is not the same thing as that bad feeling most people call depression. You might not have intended it, but your post is, in a way, just as condescending as the GGPP. Educate yourself, learn the difference and then we can have a real conversation about it.
Excuse me, wtf r u doin?
What mandatory education? In my state, a parent can just claim they're homeschooling their child, and that will be the end of that. The state doesn't even check up on them to make sure it's true thanks to homeschool lobbying groups.
Maybe I took the bit about the "happy robots" other than in the spirit in which it was intended. Sometimes it's difficult for me to be completely objective about such matters, since the subject hits rather close to home, even when I'm not in one of my less happy phases.
It's also come to my notice recently that there seems to be an endless supply of online jerks who seem to think that depressives are that way by choice, or that they're just trying to look emo-hip.
Regarding the emo thing: I tend to take the emo scene with a large grain of salt. I appreciate that there are others with problems similar to mine, and many of them have it worse than I've ever had. But I don't need to see it glorified, and I don't need to broadcast to the world that it should feel sorry for me.
What I think helped to empower me was coming to the realisation that, while I can't always control how I feel, I can try to control what I do about it. And that feeling sorry for myself or expecting others to feel sorry for me negates that control.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
In the 1950s Robert G. Heath began using deep brain stimulation for many illnesses including depression.
Electrical self-stimulation of the brain in man
Modulation of emotion with a brain pacemaker
http://www.google.ca/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=Deep+Brain+Stimulation+in+Neurological+and+Psychiatric+Disorders&btnG=
I was actually thinking of this http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Wire
Die! DIE! The word is die . Not pass, like a test or a motorcar. Not "in a better place". Not "with the angels." Not "sleeps with the fish." Stop avoiding the issue. When someone stops living, he dies.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Is scopalomine the only glutamate-enhancing treatment you've tried? Also are you dosing high enough to ever have hallucinations from it? I know that in high doses it is a deliriant (frank, often scary hallucinations in lieu of LSD-like technicolor laser beams) just like Benadryl. Does not sound like fun, especially for a severely depressed person. If all you've got is dry mouth, scopalomine sounds like a good deal.
I would be interested to hear about how doctors are administering ketamine to patients (are they IVing 80+ mg all at once to send people to the K-hole or just giving people a slow drip?). The DEA has ketamine in Schedule III and I don't hear about it being used much outside of veterinary hospitals, so I'm curious how they settled on a dosage plan.
I would be interested to know if these doctors can work up a ketamine treatment that offers long-term improvement, whether it's through something like indefinite semi-weekly treatments or a one-time treatment combined with psychiatric counseling to start a new chapter in the patient's life, so to speak. Users of dissociative anesthetics have known about the ketamine/pcp/dextromethorphan "afterglow" for a while now, but they've also known that it fades after a day or two and that paranoid ideation and emotional instability often settle in soon after.
Also, scopalomine occurs naturally in some plants. Have you looked into finding a cheaper source than some pharmaceutical patch? And finally, you should really submit this story to Slashdot. I mean, you're talking about a depression treatment that's not just some stupid SSRI, but something that actually works, right away? This is much more interesting and important than crab-based computing.
Why not just use a drug that's known to work....like MDMA (aka ecstasy), to treat these people?
tirefire,
No, Scopolamine isn't the only glutamate-enhancing drug; both Ketamine and Riluzole do the same thing. My doctor and I settled on Scopolamine because its side effects are less than those of the other drugs. I understand that the Ketamine has been administered as an IV drip, but I don't know how fast or how often. The impression I got from the article and my doctor is that it wasn't very safe, the way it had to be done--which indicates to me that it's a pretty large dose, or at least large enough to cause nasty side effects and possibly addiction. I don't know what kind of treatment schedule was used for ketamine (though the article might say; I can't remember off the top of my head). It's very possible that the patients didn't get much long-term relief from it, but the article's thrust seemed to suggest at least a little lasting relief. The other two drugs were better about that, as I understand it (perhaps because they're safer to administer regularly).
The level of Scopolamine I'm on--1 1.5mg patch that lasts 3 days--is nowhere near enough to cause hallucinogenic effects in me. Some people have reported drowsiness (which I occasionally get, but since it removes my chronic fatigue from depression, I still come out ahead), and others have reported rare instances of psychotic episodes or mania. Those episodes, to my knowledge, only occurred in people who had mania and psychosis due to their illnesses, though, and not reliably. My doctor advised me to note carefully any such symptoms, should I develop them, but he said it mainly because this drug hasn't been used much for depression, and is, as such, largely untested for side effects relating to mental illness.
Do you know what plants contain scopolamine? That would be exceedingly useful to know, so that those who can't afford the pharmaceutical version can try an herbal remedy (that's more effective than St. John's Wort...). There is a danger of overdose, as you mentioned--hallucinations, mania, deliriousness, etc.--when too much is used, so I don't know how safe it would be to suggest self-medicating with it; but if the amount in the plant is very small, it might be very difficult to overdose with the herbal version.
I'll submit this story as suggested. Thanks for the encouragement, tirefire and AC; I very much hope that new treatments like this one will help as many people as possible. (As a side note, if you, personally, have a doctor who needs to consult with another professional about this before prescribing such a treatment, feel free to PM me and I'll see about getting my doctor to share some anonomized data.)
Update: I've submitted that link as a story. If anyone cares to moderate it into an accepted story, it should now be available for such. The words Ketamine, Riluzole, and Scopolamine are in the title, so it should be fairly easy to find.
Thanks again for the suggestion.
This is different from the magnetic stimulation, and supposedly more effective. It involves putting direct current (up to 2 mA) across the scalp. No holes required! Research is on-going, and you can google for research and surveys of research that has been done.
In fact, I'm just starting to experiment with it myself, as it appears quite safe, as long as you monitor the current level closely. (I have it set up so that if anything goes awry, the current is immediately disconnected.)
Supposedly it is able to affect depression, insomnia, and boost learning. I'd be happy if it helped any of the three...
The electrodes are many times thinner than a human hair, so they can be pushed into your brain right through your skull. Then your neurological processes can be remotely controlled and monitored. See http://www.karlaturner.org/ for more information. It's like a real-life version of Avatar.
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) via electrical impulses has been around for about two decades as a means of treating depression. It's a bit of a method of last resort though because it's rather invasive, and not all patients benefit from it. Even the currently-reported work isn't that new, the story about the crocus blooms has been going around for a couple of years now. It's certainly exciting work, but still quite bleeding-edge, and like VNS is expensive and invasive enough that it'll remain a method of last resort when everything else has failed.
imm getting the hell outta here...... it's depressing
Funny how you racist fuck-widgets always post AC isn't it? I suppose it shows at least an iota of common sense and self preservationin the vast desert of stupidity that must pass as your brain
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
They're not even good trolls. Dr Bob, at least, got a lot of responses from people who thought he was serious. These trolls are so obvious that after reading half of the first sentence you know that the post will contain nothing of value. The only thing I can think of is that they're intended to make mods waste their mod points so that ones hoarded by shilling companies will be more likely to affect the relevant posts.
I may be doing it wrong, but I almost never moderate ACs when I have mod points, either up or down, unless there is something genuinely outstanding in their post. It would be a waste of time down modding every nonsensical and/or racist troll here.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If depression has purely psychological causes, what's the point of anti-depressant drugs?
I suppose it's all a big conspiracy by the government/Big Pharma?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Don't worry, I'm sure your tinfoil hat will protect you from any government remote mind control rays..
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
In most of the rest of the civilized world, and certainly in Europe, school is compulsory for children, and keeping them at home to indoctrinate them with religion is thankfully very difficult, if not impossible.
Your freedom to practise an insane religion does not extend to being free to ruin your children's lives by denying them education., any more than because you believe in child sacrifice you can ritually slaughter them with impunity.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
... in the sun. A little bit of extra vitamin D and a bright sunny day can do wonders.
Also: pet-shops, especially the ones that let you touch the animals (e.g. Petland). Being able to hold and rub a warm fuzzy animal is very cathartic. Bunnies are particular nice as they fill the warm & fuzzy quota while generally being quite and not bitey. I must warn that doing so does tend to lead to one becoming a pet-owner, but then you've got your own warm & fuzzy at home. If it comes to fuzzy-pet-ownership, again I recommend dwarf bunnies, as they're not overly high maintenance. females tend to smell better than males (males get musky when feeling "frisky", and may you may find them in amorous encounters with you fuzzy slippers or anything else fuzzy and roughly the same size as a bunny).
From the description of wireheads (droud addicts) in various Niven books, most of them were already depressed before seeking out the Droud. It was also mentioned as a solution with less "pushers" than drugs, as a wirehead only needed a one-time install and some batteries or occasional basic maintenance afterwards.
I am not sure if being told that I need electric diodes installed in my head would make me more or less depressed...
It would be either, "Great, just great...", or "You know what Doc, I'm suddenly feeling a lot better..."
i had an aneurysm in '05 (in the motor cortex) that severed neural connections and left me hemiplegic. i wonder if i should too, get excited over this...
alive to the universe, dead to the world
Excellent advice. Keep in mind, though, it's not always about fear; there are some anti-social individuals who e.g. put items on the train tracks just to watch the carnage...
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I'm happy to play the Nazi if you can wear high heels and a yarmulke
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
The lobby promoting this type of treatment were the same lobby which opposed ECT a much safer and easier way to treat depression and much more effective and cheaper especially in India. The Drug MNCs purchased the medical fraternity through Human rights lawyers and killed the cheap ECT treatment in some cases using even UNCRPD. Now the same human rights lawyers will hail this treatment as a great boon!!!!
The call for citations separates the wheat from the chaff.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!