Nerve-stimulation therapy can get people out of severe depression
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Participants in clinic trial went from being unable to get out of bed to being productive and interacting with loved ones. Nerve-stimulation therapy can greatly improve symptoms of severe, treatment-resistant depression, a new clinical trial shows. The results of the trial, published last month in a pair of studies in the journal Brain Stimulation, show that stimulating the vagus nerve can alleviate depressive symptoms, improve life quality, and enhance the patient’s ability to complete everyday tasks after only a year.
The trial involved nearly 500 people at 84 sites across the US who all suffered from severe depression that could not be treated effectively with medication or other approaches. Around 75 per cent of the patients were so ill they were unable to work, researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis said.
The participants were all implanted with a device to stimulate their left vagus nerve, a major conduit between the brain and the internal organs, but only half the devices were turned on. This type of vagus nerve stimulation device was approved for treatment-resistant depression nearly two decades ago by the US Food and Drug Administration, but did not become widely available.
It is a pacemaker-like device implanted under the skin in the chest with a wire connected to the left vagus nerve in the neck. The device stimulates the nerve, which in turn sends electrical pulses to areas of the brain associated with mood regulation.
