[STUDY] Depressed People's Brain Signals Flow in Wrong Direction; How Can This Help Create Treatment?

Severely depressed people's brain signals are flowing in the wrong direction, as claimed by a new study.

Researchers at Standford Medicine shared this new finding on May 15 via their official press release. They explained that powerful magnetic pulses applied to the scalp are commonly used to stimulate the brains of depressed patients.

This gives them relief when standard depression treatments don't work. Stanford Medicine experts said that it had been a mystery why magnetic pulses are effective. Thanks to their new study, they finally found the answer.

Depressed People's Brain Signals Flow in Wrong Direction

According to Interesting Engineering's latest report, the new study decoded a major biological mechanism that leads to severe depression.

This previously unknown biomarker is neural signals that travel in the wrong direction as compared to healthy people.

These brain signals can be found between two key regions of the body organ.

"This is the first time in psychiatry where this particular change in a biology-the flow of signals between these two brain regions predicts the change in clinical symptoms," said Nolan Williams, the director of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab.

But, he added that the incorrect brain signal flow is still a rare case, especially among people with less severe depression.

New Depression Treatment

With their new discovery, Stanford Medicine researchers were able to find a new depression treatment.

The Food and Drug Administration already approved a new treatment called SNT (Stanford neuromodulation therapy).

SNT uses advanced imaging techniques to guide brain signals with high-dose magnetic pulses.

Stanford Medicine researchers already tested SNT in 23 patients. Thanks to the treatment, the patients said that their depression symptoms subsided.

"When we get a person with severe depression, we can look for this biomarker to decide how likely they are to respond well to SNT treatment," said Anish Mitra, the lead author of the study.

If you want to learn more about this new depression treatment, you can visit this link.

In other news, a previous study claimed that cats with COVID-19 have the same variants as their owners. Meanwhile, health researchers developed a new app to help combat pedestrian deaths caused by smartphone distractions.

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