Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — Emily Hollenbeck lived with a deep, recurring depression she likened to a black hole, where gravity felt so strong and her limbs so heavy she could barely move. She knew the illness could kill her. Both of her parents had taken their lives. She was willing to try something extreme: Having electrodes implanted in her brain as part of an experimental therapy. Researchers say the treatment —- called deep brain stimulation, or DBS — could eventually help many of the nearly 3 million Americans like her with depression that resists other treatments. It’s approved for conditions...

Depression can be a frighteningly relentless condition. Luckily, researchers around the world are constantly working on new treatment options, such as a newly designed brain implant for resistant depression. Altogether, up to a third of people with depression don't respond or become resistant to treatment. No medication or therapy type seems to help. For those with such treatment-resistant depression, the future can look especially bleak. This is what happened to Sarah, a 36-year-old woman who's had severe and treatment-resistant depression since she was a child. But a new proof-of-concept intervention has provided significant relief for Sarah, and could offer hope...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine in November surgically implanted a pacemaker-like device into the brain of a patient in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, the first such operation in the United States. The device, which provides deep brain stimulation and has been used in thousands of people with Parkinson's disease, is seen as a possible means of boosting memory and reversing cognitive decline.*snip*The surgery involves drilling holes into the skull to implant wires into the fornix on either side of the brain. The fornix is a brain pathway instrumental in bringing information to the hippocampus, the portion of the...