Currently, over a third of patients do not respond to conventional depression treatments. For these individuals, a new form of therapy involves deep brain stimulation (DBS).
The technique, a form of targeted electrical stimulation in the brain via implanted electrodes, is now undergoing careful testing to determine whether it could play a role in the treatment of patients who have not sufficiently improved during more traditional forms of treatment.
A major challenge of this work is determining the best region of the brain to stimulate.
Some researchers stimulate the subgenual prefrontal cortex, a brain region implicated in depressed mood states, while others stimulate a region called the “anterior limb of the internal capsule,” a nerve pathway that passes through the basal ganglia, a lower brain region.
Physicians publishing a new report in Biological Psychiatry now describe findings related to the stimulation of the nucleus accumbens, a brain region the size of a hazelnut associated with reward and motivation that is implicated in processing pleasurable stimuli, sometimes referred to as the “pleasure center” of the brain.
The inability to experience pleasure is a key symptom of depression and previous studies have shown that functioning of the nucleus accumbens is impaired in depressed individuals.
Stimulate Brain Pleasure Centers for Depression
