Mental Health | Depression | Neuroscience
Personalized Brain Stimulation Provides Hope for Treating Intractable Depression
Individualized neuromodulation could help sufferers of major depression who don’t respond to traditional treatments.
As the doctor gave her a physical exam, Mary* was unable to maintain eye contact. Although her depression had left her with a limited range of emotions, she still struggled to keep from crying.
“Restricted and tearful affect,” wrote the examining physician.
The results of her physical examination and routine laboratory tests were normal. And she had no psychotic symptoms or thoughts of hurting herself — this time.
Over two years before, Mary, a retired cafeteria worker, started having asthma-like symptoms treated with corticosteroids. She developed corticosteroid-induced psychosis with visual hallucinations and mania. When she was taken off of the corticosteroids, her psychotic and manic symptoms went away but were replaced with severe treatment-resistant depression.
Mary found it difficult to read a newspaper or follow television programs. She said she had “lost all interest in things” and felt “depressed 24 hours a day.”…
