Here is a piece of good information for the people suffering from depression. It’s a new treatment for severe depression, giving people a chance at a normal life. It’s a pacemaker-like device, called Vagus nerve stimulation that delivers a small electrical current to the vagus nerve. Stimulation of the vagus nerve has been shown to influence areas of the brain that control mood and seizures. The device was approved in 1997 for patients suffering from epilepsy. The recipients using it reported an improvement in mood. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July approved the device for treatment of depression, after clinical trials.
Brain
TagPersistent Depression May be Curbed by Brain Stimulation
An experimental treatment called deep brain stimulation may help individuals with severe depressions who do not respond to standard types of treatment. This is reported by Canadian investigators. Four of six severely depressed patients underwent deep brain stimulation. This stimulation involves surgically implanting electrodes in a targeted area of the brain thought to be involved in depression. They experienced a “striking and sustained” let-up in their depression, as investigators report in the medical journal Neuron. Despite treatment with antidepressant medications, psychotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy, the six patients had been suffering with depression for between 1.5 to 10 years, the team informed.
A Pacemaker for the Brain!
Rightly billed as “a pacemaker for the brain,” the pocket watch sized device is the newest cutting-edge treatment for as many as 4 million adults who failed to get relieved from severe depression by psychotherapy, drugs or even shock treatments! It was approved eight months ago by the Food and Drug Administration. Since then, to have a vagus nerve stimulator (VNS) implanted in their chests to activate parts of their brains, more than 550 Americans have undergone surgery. And another 7,000 people are seeking approval from their insurance companies for the $25,000 operation. They are all aided by a network of nurses, who were hired by Cyberonics, the Houston-based manufacturer of the device.
Research: Electric shock may help in depression
Medications and therapies sometimes don’t provide complete relief to the people suffering from depression. Now the medical experts are looking for a small shock of electricity to the brain as helping tool to reduce depression. This experimental therapy is called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Doctors are using different diverse technology to test TMS on obsessive compulsive disorder like Schizophrenia, Migraines and Stroke. The team is targeting the Prefrontal Cortex in the brain to make this experimentation successful. Because it is said that electricity excites nerve cells that control depression. Furthermore the doctors are concentrating to the other parts of the brain that may help in other conditions.
Holding hand of your spouse may reduce your stress!
If you wish to bring down your stress level, then you simply have to hold hand of your spouse. Yea, hand, because a new study by the psychology experts from the University of Virginia has cleared out the fact that handholding of life partner provides our brain with soothing sense. To get this fact precisely, psychologists scanned the wives’ brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Whether handholding has similar effect on husbands’ brain is still not clear, since this study was focused just on wives’ brain. Therefore, we cannot deny that this study is lop-sided or incomplete. However, we shall have to accept that this study has brought before us a very significant fact, which vindicates that directly as well as indirectly company of a life partner plays a significant role in our life. So, still it would be adequate to say that at least, wives can hold their husbands’ hand whenever they find themselves stressed.
Stress, depression might lead to memory loss
If you are some one who associates himself with depression and stress, this story is a must for you. Scientists have found that people who are easily stressed out or depressed are more prone to memory problems than those with sunnier temperament. Those getting easily anxious or depressed are 40 times more likely to develop mild memory loss that is in-between between normal aging and dementia. Not only such people lose cognition, but also show signs related to development of Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists warn that chronic distress is related to the first clinical manifestation of Alzheimer’s disease. And those with mild cognitive impairment have some trouble detecting things, but they do not have considerable disability. 1,256 people totally free of mental problems volunteered for the study that spanned 12 years. After the stipulated time period, it was found that 482 of them developed mild cognitive impairment. The study revealed that chronic stress might damage parts of the brain responsible for responding to stress. It could open up new ways to approach the strategy to delay the symptoms of this malady. It is better to keep your stress and tensions at bay, else that day isn’t far when your brain would give in to one of the worst brain diseases, Alzheimer’s. One can always overcome stress by exposing the body to physical exercises and meditation. Earlier studies have found that mediation promotes brain memory. Image Via: MSN