SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
"Powerful magnetic pulses applied to the scalp to stimulate the brain can bring fast relief to many severely depressed patients for whom standard treatments have failed. Yet it's been a mystery exactly how transcranial magnetic stimulation, as the treatment is known, changes the brain to dissipate depression. Now, research led by Stanford Medicine scientists has found that the treatment works by reversing the direction of abnormal brain signals."
"When they analyzed fMRI data across the whole brain, one connection stood out. In the normal brain, the anterior insula, a region that integrates bodily sensations, sends signals to a region that governs emotions, the anterior cingulate cortex.
"You could think of it as the anterior cingulate cortex receiving this information about the body—like heart rate or temperature—and then deciding how to feel on the basis of all these signals," Mitra said.
In three-quarters of the participants with depression, however, the typical flow of activity was reversed: The anterior cingulate cortex sent signals to the anterior insula. The more severe the depression, the higher the proportion of signals that traveled the wrong way."
"When depressed patients were treated with SNT, the flow of neural activity shifted to the normal direction within a week, coinciding with a lifting of their depression."
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-05-depression-reversing-brain-wrong.html
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Friday May 19, @12:35AM (1 child)
Yes, ECT got somewhat safer later on when they started to administer medication to reduce the severity of the muscle spasms. From what I understand the magnetic version, BCT, is supposed to be less problematic in terms of the memory problems, but it's not something that I've kept current on as it's not something that I need and I don't know anybody else that has needed it either.
But, yes, memory problems with ECT are well known and have been for many decades. That was a large part of why Hemingway chose to murder himself, as his memory was gone following the treatments. I don't know how long he waited before concluding that things wouldn't get better. It's also unclear to me whether it was the memory problems or if it didn't give enough relief from the depressive symptoms to get him clear of the suicidal ideation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 19, @12:58AM
The documentaries I have seen about Hemingway painted him as an overcompensating highly insecure individual, highly entertaining but not the kind of (total) life experience most people would choose.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end