In the largest study to date, a German research team has confirmed that deep brain stimulation of the brain’s reward system provides relief for treatment-resistant depression. Investigators from the University of Freiburg and their colleagues from the University Hospital Bonn discovered the technique provides acute and long-term benefits.
Researchers used thin electrodes to stimulate a deep-seated part of the reward system in the brains of 16 patients. The intervention led to a significant reduction of ratings of depression severity in all patients. Moreover, for half of the study participants depression symptoms were reduced to levels not requiring treatment.
Most of the patients experienced those positive stimulation effects within the first week, and they lasted throughout the course of the one-year study. The study appears online in the Nature journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
“The most compelling outcome from the study is the sustained efficacy in very severely ill patients. Most treatments in psychiatry cease to be efficacious after months and years, we demonstrated for the first time in demonstrating in a relatively large-scale study that deep brain stimulation is a real option for those patients suffering from treatment-resistant, severe depression,” says group leader Prof. Dr. Thomas Schläpfer.
An estimated 10 to 30 percent of all people with recurring depression do not respond to approved treatments. Deep brain stimulation could be a treatment option for some of these patients. The 16 participants in the FORSEE-II study had suffered from severe depression for 8 to 22 years and had previously undergone an average of 18 drug therapies, 20 electroconvulsive therapies, and 70 hours of psychotherapy – without success.
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