Thread by @Telegraph

🧠Severe depression can be treated instantly with a brain ‘pacemaker’ which resets neural circuits and alleviates suicidal thoughts, a groundbreaking study has shown.

Thread 🧵
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/0…

🔎 Scientists at the University of California monitored the brain activity of a suicidal patient to find brain regions which were active during major depressive episodes

Researchers came up with a neuro-modulation implant which is constantly on the lookout for the first signs of depression.

⚡ It then delivers a short burst of electricity to reboot the brain circuits

➡️The first patient to have the device fitted, a US woman known only as ‘Sarah’, said the treatment had been ‘transformative.’

“I was at the end of the line,” she said. “I had exhausted all possible treatment options with no success”
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/0…

💬 “When they implanted the chronic device and switched it on for the first time, my life took an immediate upward turn.

"I feel a sense of alertness or energy or positivity”

“Hobbies that I used to distract from suicidal thoughts became enjoyable again,” Sarah said.

“A year into therapy, it has kept my depression at bay and allowed me to rebuild a life worth living”
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/0…

🗣️ “When we turned this treatment on, our patients’ depression symptoms dissolved and in a remarkably short time she went into remission,” said first author on the study, Dr Katherine Scangos

“What we are increasingly realising is that depression is caused by faulty neural circuits, but because every person is different it probably involves multiple neurocircuits”

Read the full story 👇
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/0…