Next-gen brain implants offer new hope for depression
AI and real-time neural feedback could transform treatments.
Her relapse into depression felt like defeat—but it offered vital clues to achieving lasting psychiatric relief.
The 67-year-old woman from Alabama had already endured four major depressive episodes in her decades-long battle with mental illness. After exhausting numerous medications and other therapies, in 2015 she turned to an experimental last resort: deep brain stimulation, or DBS.
Neurosurgeons implanted electrodes a few inches below her skull, targeting a small bundle of neural fibers in a brain region behind the forehead that acts as a crucial hub for mood regulation. Thin wires connected the electrodes to a pulse generator discreetly inserted in her upper chest. Once activated, the device delivered a steady stream of high-frequency electricity, gently buzzing the targeted circuits to disrupt maladaptive patterns and, like a pacemaker for the brain, restore a healthier balance of neural activity.
Continue reading at IEEE Spectrum.
