Mayo Clinic Proceedings Reviews Deep Brain Stimulation to Treat Psychiatric Diseases

	Tweet

Pioneering therapeutic trials to investigate the effectiveness of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in hard-to-treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette’s syndrome are underway at multiple medical centers around the world, according to a review in the June 2009 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. “Deep brain stimulation has long been seen as valuable for controlling movement disorders,” according to the review, written by Susannah Tye, Ph.D., Mark Frye, M.D., from the Mayo Clinic Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, and Kendall Lee, M.D., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic Department of Neurosurgery. “It now is being investigated for hard-to-treat psychiatric disorders,” according to the authors.

“Early results indicate the effect on depression and obsessive compulsive disorder is beneficial, but the therapy needs further study,” Dr. Lee says. The potential for this breakthrough treatment is enormous in reducing the toll of mental illness on patients, their families and society, according to the review.

Unlike electroshock therapy (ECT), which stimulates the entire brain, DBS stimulates specific parts of the brain. DBS is thought to be functionally equivalent to creating a lesion on the brain, but with the advantage of being adjustable and reversible. 

“It is like implanting a pacemaker for the brain,” says Dr. Lee. The patient is awake during deep brain stimulation surgery while a neurosurgeon implants the electrodes. Patients are able to give immediate feedback. Additionally, patients do not feel any pain during the implantation procedure since the brain is without pain receptors.

In the developed world, major depression is second only to cardiovascular disease in premature mortality and time lived with disability according to the review. In persons aged 15 to 44 years, depression is the most disabling medical illness in the United States. The prevalence of major depression, known to be a chronic and relapsing illness, is approximately 17 percent, affecting almost 1 in 5 persons.

Medications and psychiatric therapy can effectively treat many patients with major depression; however, up to 20 percent of these patients fail to respond to these non-surgical therapeutic interventions.

“DBS is not a miracle cure and should not be used to treat all depression,” says Dr. Lee. “It should be reserved for those patients who have treatment-resistant depression and approved by a multi-disciplinary team.” Ongoing advances in DBS technologies represent an important new field that could greatly advance the understanding of psychiatric neurobiology, according to the review.

A peer-review journal, Mayo Clinic Proceedings publishes original articles and reviews dealing with clinical and laboratory medicine, clinical research, basic science research and clinical epidemiology. Mayo Clinic Proceedings is published monthly by Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research as part of its commitment to the medical education of physicians. The journal has been published for more than 80 years and has a circulation of 130,000 nationally and internationally. Articles are available online at http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com.

About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. Doctors from every medical specialty work together to care for patients, joined by common systems and a philosophy that “the needs of the patient come first.” More than 3,300 physicians, scientists and researchers and 46,000 allied health staff work at Mayo Clinic, which has sites in Rochester, Minn., Jacksonville, Fla., and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. Collectively, the three locations treat more than half a million people each year. To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to http://www.mayoclinic.org/news. MayoClinic.com (http://www.mayoclinic.com) is available as a resource for your health stories.

Source: Mayo Clinic

RELATED STORIES:
Newly Discovered Gene Variants Lead to Autism and Mental Retardation   Apathy and depression, separate issues in Parkinson’s disease   Program Assists Brothers and Sisters of Kids with Autism   Mental Illness and Drug Addiction May Co-occur Due to Disturbance in the Brain’s Seat of Anxie   Study Pinpoints Links of Depression with Chronic Pain   Adolescent Girls with ADHD Are at Increased Risk for Eating Disorders, Study Shows   ADHD is over-diagnosed   Discovery may provide new treatments for alcohol dependence   Schizophrenia and Healthcare: Survey Finds Treatment Barriers   Parents’ mental illness linked to children’s allergy   Sexual health promotion is low among people with serious mental illnesses, despite higher risk   First Skin Patch to Treat Depression   Placebo effect may influence depression treatment   Maternal depression is associated with significant sleep disturbance in infants   Lilly submits Cymbalta NDA for generalized anxiety disorder

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]