Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere around the US are beginning to offer vagus nerve stimulation, a controversial and expensive new surgical implant, to patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression. While some patients swear by the device, critics point to the lack of clear scientific evidence that the $40,000 vagus nerve stimulation device alleviates depression at all.
New research sheds further light on the role of brain chemistry in anorexia nervosa, indicating that disturbances in the way the brain uses serotonin may persist long after recovery from one type of anorexia.
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) therapy, a treatment recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment-resistant depression, produced a positive response in more than 25 percent of patients in a national, yearlong study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center psychiatrists.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved an electrical brain stimulator which delivers tiny shocks as a treatment for severe depression. A generator the size of a pocket watch is implanted into the chest, and wires snake up the neck to the vagus nerve, delivering tiny electric shocks through that nerve and into a region of the brain thought to play a role in mood.
Increased chemical activity in a part of the brain involved in reward and reinforcement may help shed light on the question of why anorexia sufferers feel driven to lose weight but don’t get any pleasure from it. New research with anorexia sufferers using brain-imaging technology found overactivity of dopamine receptors in a part of the brain known as the basal ganglia. Around 1 percent of women in the US suffer from anorexia, a disorder that can also affect men.
We comply with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here.
