amygdala
Precision Deep Brain Stimulation Shows Initial Promise for Severe Depression
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
For many people struggling with depression, antidepressants and talk therapy can help to provide relief. But for some, the treatments don’t help nearly enough. I’m happy to share some early groundbreaking research in alleviating treatment-resistant depression in a whole new way: implanting a pacemaker-like device capable of delivering therapeutic electrical impulses deep into the brain, aiming for the spot where they can reset the depression circuit.
What’s so groundbreaking about the latest approach—so far, performed in just one patient—is that the electrodes didn’t simply deliver constant electrical stimulation. The system could recognize the specific pattern of brain activity associated with the patient’s depressive symptoms and deliver electrical impulses to the brain circuit where it could provide the most relief.
While much more study is needed, this precision approach to deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy offered immediate improvement to the patient, a 36-year-old woman who’d suffered from treatment-resistant major depressive disorder since childhood. Her improvement has lasted now for more than a year.
This precision approach to DBS has its origins in clinical research supported through NIH’s Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative. A team, led by Edward Chang, a neurosurgeon at the University of California San Francisco’s (UCSF) Epilepsy Center, discovered while performing DBS that the low mood in some patients with epilepsy before surgery was associated with stronger activity in a “subnetwork” deep within the brain’s neural circuitry. The subnetwork involved crosstalk between the brain’s amygdala, which mediates fear and other emotions, and the hippocampus, which aids in memory.
Researchers led by Andrew Krystal, UCSF, Weill Institute for Neurosciences, attempted in the latest work to translate this valuable lead into improved care for depression. Their results were published recently in the journal Nature Medicine [1].
Krystal and colleagues, including Chang and Katherine Scangos, who is the first author of the new study, began by mapping patterns of brain activity in the patient that was associated with the onset of her low moods. They then customized an FDA-approved DBS device to respond only when it recognized those specific patterns. Called NeuroPace® RNS®, the device includes a small neurostimulator and measures about 6 by 3 centimeters, allowing it to be fully implanted inside a person’s skull. There, it continuously monitors brain activity and can deliver electrical stimulation via two leads, as shown in the image above [2].
Researchers found they could detect and predict high symptom severity best in the amygdala, as previously reported. The next question was where the electrical stimulation would best relieve those troubling brain patterns and associated symptoms. They discovered that stimulation in the brain’s ventral capsule/ventral striatum, part of the brain’s circuitry for decision-making and reward-related behavior, led to the most consistent and sustained improvements. Based on these findings, the team devised an on-demand and immediate DBS therapy that was unique to the patient’s condition.
It will be important to learn whether this precision approach to DBS is broadly effective for managing treatment-resistant depression and perhaps other psychiatric conditions. It will take much more study and time before such an approach to treating depression can become more widely available. Also, it is not yet clear just how much it would cost. But these remarkable new findings certainly point the way toward a promising new approach that will hopefully one day bring another treatment option for those in need of relief from severe depression.
References:
[1] Closed-loop neuromodulation in an individual with treatment-resistant depression. Scangos KW, Khambhati AN, Daly PM, Makhoul GS, Sugrue LP, Zamanian H, Liu TX, Rao VR, Sellers KK, Dawes HE, Starr PA, Krystal AD, Chang EF. Nat Med. 2021 Oct;27(10):1696-1700
[2] The NeuroPace® RNS® System for responsive neurostimulation, NIH BRAIN Initiative.
Links:
Depression (National Institute of Mental Health/NIH)
Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson’s Disease and other Movement Disorders (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke/NIH)
Andrew Krystal (University of California San Francisco)
Katherine Scangos (UCSF)
Edward Chang (UCSF)
NIH Support: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Distinctive Brain ‘Subnetwork’ Tied to Feeling Blue
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Credit: :iStock/kieferpix
Experiencing a range of emotions is a normal part of human life, but much remains to be discovered about the neuroscience of mood. In a step toward unraveling some of those biological mysteries, researchers recently identified a distinctive pattern of brain activity associated with worsening mood, particularly among people who tend to be anxious.
In the new study, researchers studied 21 people who were hospitalized as part of preparation for epilepsy surgery, and took continuous recordings of the brain’s electrical activity for seven to 10 days. During that same period, the volunteers also kept track of their moods. In 13 of the participants, low mood turned out to be associated with stronger activity in a “subnetwork” that involved crosstalk between the brain’s amygdala, which mediates fear and other emotions, and the hippocampus, which aids in memory.
Creative Minds: Seeing Memories in a New Light
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Steve Ramirez/Joshua Sariñana
Whether it’s lacing up for a morning run, eating blueberry scones, or cheering on the New England Patriots, Steve Ramirez loves life and just about everything in it. As an undergraduate at Boston University, this joie de vivre actually made Ramirez anxious about choosing just one major. A serendipitous conversation helped him realize that all of the amazing man-made stuff in our world has a common source: the human brain.
So, Ramirez decided to pursue neuroscience and began exploring the nature of memory. Employing optogenetics (using light to control brain cells) in mice, he tagged specific neurons that housed fear-inducing memories, making the neurons light sensitive and amenable to being switched on at will.
In groundbreaking studies that earned him a spot in Forbes 2015 “30 Under 30” list, Ramirez showed that it’s possible to reactivate memories experimentally in a new context, recasting them in either a more negative or positive behavior-changing light [1–3]. Now, with support from a 2016 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, Ramirez, who runs his own lab at Boston University, will explore whether activating good memories holds promise for alleviating chronic stress and psychiatric disease.
Creative Minds: Helping More Kids Beat Anxiety Disorders
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Dylan Gee
While earning her Ph.D. in clinical psychology, Dylan Gee often encountered children and adolescents battling phobias, panic attacks, and other anxiety disorders. Most overcame them with the help of psychotherapy. But not all of the kids did, and Gee spent many an hour brainstorming about how to help her tougher cases, often to find that nothing worked.
What Gee noticed was that so many of the interventions she pondered were based on studies in adults. Little was actually known about the dramatic changes that a child’s developing brain undergoes and their implications for coping under stress. Gee, an assistant professor at Yale University, New Haven, CT, decided to dedicate her research career to bridging the gap between basic neuroscience and clinical interventions to treat children and adolescents with persistent anxiety and stress-related disorders.
Brain Imaging: Tackling Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: Left to right, brain PET scans of healthy control; former NFL player with suspected chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE); and person with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Areas with highest levels of abnormal tau protein appear red/yellow; medium, green; and lowest, blue.
Credit: Adapted from Barrio et al., PNAS
If you follow the National Football League (NFL), you may have heard some former players describe their struggles with a type of traumatic brain injury called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Known to be associated with repeated, hard blows to the head, this neurodegenerative disorder can diminish the ability to think critically, slow motor skills, and lead to volatile, even suicidal, mood swings. What’s doubly frustrating to both patients and physicians is that CTE has only been possible to diagnose conclusively after death (via autopsy) because it’s indistinguishable from many other brain conditions with current imaging methods.
But help might be starting to move out of the backfield toward the goal line of more accurate diagnosis. In findings published in the journal PNAS [1], NIH-supported scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Chicago report they’ve made some progress toward imaging CTE in living people. Following up on their preliminary work published in 2013 [2], the researchers used a specially developed radioactive tracer that lights up a neural protein, called tau, known to deposit in certain areas of the brain in individuals with CTE. They used this approach on PET scans of the brains of 14 former NFL players suspected of having CTE, generating maps of tau distribution throughout various regions of the brain.
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