At-home brain stimulation device eases symptoms of major depression

More than 280 million people worldwide suffer from depression, an increasingly common illness that is now of the main causes of disability on the globe. The vast majority of diagnosed cases improve with psychological therapy or the use of antidepressants, but even so, it is estimated that almost a third of patients with a more serious condition fail to improve with these approaches.

For several years now, several hospitals and research centers around the world have begun studying the effectiveness of a brain stimulation device against major depression. Now, for the first time, Clinical trials are testing the feasibility of using these devices at home. and concludes that they may be useful in helping patients with more severe depressive symptoms without having to travel to a medical center.

The work, led by King’s College London and published this Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, includes findings large-scale clinical trial conducted on 174 patients with major depression living in both the United Kingdom and the United States. For this study, the researchers developed a protocol that involved training patients to use a brain stimulation device (designed to apply weak direct current via electrodes placed on the scalp and forehead) in their homes while they spoke to a healthcare professional in real time via video call. Half of the group of volunteers used the real device, while the other performed a placebo procedure. The trials lasted a total of 10 weeks, after which the researchers conducted evaluations.

The technique involves applying a weak direct current through electrodes placed on the scalp and forehead.

Analyzes show that all participants in this study experienced improvement in symptoms, both in the group that had the actual procedure and in the placebo group. Although yes, the improvements were 0.4 points higher among patients who received actual brain stimulation therapy. “This treatment has shown significantly improve symptoms of depressionclinical response and remission rates among patients with major depression. During the study We also observed no serious adverse events. associated with the use of these devices,” says the team led by Cynthia Fu, a researcher at King’s College London and first author of the paper.

Division among experts

The authors of this work argue that, although to establish tests the safety and effectiveness of these treatments“brain stimulation devices used at home can serve first line treatment for people with major depressive disorder.” Moreover, unlike this type of treatment, which is used in some hospitals and medical centers, do not require people to leave the house at least once a day for several weeks. A gesture that other studies have found is particularly difficult for people with more severe depressive symptoms.

The scientific community remains divided on the use of these types of tools in the home. Scientists like it Joaquim Raduapsychiatrist and director of the IDIBAPS study group “Image of Mood and Anxiety Disorders” states that “these devices could be another alternative “Because each person has different preferences and responds differently to different treatments, having more options can increase the chances of finding the most appropriate intervention for each person,” the expert said in a statement to the journal Science. Media Center of Spain.

Experts criticize that these studies are paid for by the pharmaceutical industry and do not take into account other social factors.

On the other hand, there are also scientists who are skeptical about this approach. As explained Alberto Ortiz LoboMD and psychiatrist of the Carlos III Day Hospital, the study published this Monday does not allow us to truly understand the effectiveness of these devices, since it focuses on a very short period of time and, moreover, does not compare the effectiveness of this technique with other approaches. “The researchers’ extensive declaration of conflicts of interest is also troubling given the financial ties many of them have to biomedical companies involved in marketing treatments,” the expert adds in an SMC commentary in which he denounces “how mental health research and its dissemination increasingly defined large companies selling medicines and other products technological, which means that the hegemonic discourse on mental suffering and its approach is reduced to the individual and his brain, ignoring social, biographical factors and the overall context of people’s lives.

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