The Good and Bad News About Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment-Resistant Depression
Deep brain stimulation is a treatment in which electrodes are implanted in the brain to treat movement or affective disorders. At the 2014 meeting of the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Thomas Schlaepfer reviewed the current status of studies of deep brain stimulation for depression. The bad news is that two double-blind randomized controlled studies are no longer recruiting patients because interim analysis failed to show a benefit to the deep brain stimulation over a sham stimulation. The studies targeted two of the most promising parts of the brain for deep brain stimulation—the subgenual anterior cingulate (important for motivation) and the anterior limb of the internal capsule (which contains nerve fibers going to and from the cerebral cortex), so their failure is a disappointment. However, Helen Mayberg, one of the lead researchers studying the subgenual anterior cingulate, will continue to study this target for deep brain stimulation.
The better news is that Schlaepfer repositioned the electrodes to target a site in the medial forebrain bundle nearer to the ventral tegmental area. After this shift he observed rapid onset of antidepressant response (within two days) in seven of the first eight patients studied, and these responses persisted over many months of follow up. This response was achieved at 2.8 microamps, a lower stimulation current than was used in other studies of deep brain stimulation.
Editor’s Note: Since patients started to feel better when they were still on the operating table, this may offer an opportunity to more rapidly assess effectiveness, do a double-blind study, and see if the findings can be replicated as another mode of achieving rapid-acting and long-lasting antidepressant effects in treatment-resistant patients. Intravenous ketamine has rapid-onset antidepressant effects, but its effects are short-lived.
