OT: Magnet device aims to treat depression patients

[Guest guest]

Is this the same treatment that was written about by Kim on AOA?

Magnet device aims to treat depression patients

Magnetic pulses beamed through skull may help trigger brain's mood

areas

The Associated Press

updated 7:12 p.m. ET, Mon., Oct. 20, 2008

WASHINGTON - The government has approved the first noninvasive brain

stimulator to treat depression — a device that beams magnetic pulses

through the skull.

If it sounds like science-fiction, well, those woodpecker-like pulses

trigger small electrical charges that spark brain cells to fire. Yet

it doesn't cause the risks of surgically implanted electrodes or the

treatment of last resort, shock therapy.

Called transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS, this gentler

approach isn't for everyone. The Food and Drug Administration

approved Neuronetics Inc.'s NeuroStar therapy specifically for

patients who had no relief from their first antidepressant, offering

them a different option than trying pill after pill.

" We're opening up a whole new area of medicine, " says Dr. Mark

of the Medical University of South Carolina in ton, who helped

pioneer use of TMS in depression. " There's a whole field now that's

moving forward of noninvasive electrical stimulation of the brain. "

While there's a big need for innovative approaches — at least one in

five depression patients is treatment-resistant — the question is

just how much benefit TMS offers.

The FDA cleared the prescription-only NeuroStar based on data that

found patients did modestly better when treated with TMS than when

they unknowingly received a sham treatment that mimicked the magnet.

It was a study fraught with statistical questions that concerned the

agency's own scientific advisers.

For a more clear answer, the National Institutes of Health has an

independent study under way now that tracks 260 patients and may have

initial results as early as next year.

Quantifying the benefit is key, considering the price tag. TMS is

expected to cost $6,000 to $10,000, depending on how many treatments

a patient needs, says Dr. Philip Janicak of Rush University Medical

Center in Chicago, who helped lead the NeuroStar study. That's far

more expensive than medication yet thousands of dollars cheaper than

invasive depression devices.

Neuroscientists have been using TMS for years as a research tool in

brain studies. Zap a powerful magnet over a certain spot on the head —

where motion is controlled — and someone's arm can suddenly,

involuntarily, lash out. Beyond the " wow " factor, magnetized pulses

were triggering brain activity.

The question was how to harness that activity in a way that might

improve disease. TMS also is being studied in stroke rehabilitation

and other brain disorders.

" Nobody thought this would work; it was a crazy idea. I had to do it

at 6 in the morning before the real scientists came in, " South

Carolina's laughs as he recalls work he began in 1993.

But, " the brain is an electrical organ, " adds, explaining the

rationale. " Electricity is the currency of the brain. It's how the

brain does what it does. "

Zapping the brain

For depression, psychiatrists aim the magnet at the left front of the

head, the prefrontal cortex. Since everyone's brain is different,

they first zap the top of the head to find a patient's motor-control

region, and then carefully move 5 centimeters forward. Then, the

NeuroStar beams about 3,000 pulses a minute during a 40-minute

treatment, done about five times a week for up to six weeks.

The theory: Stimulating brain cells in the prefrontal cortex triggers

a chain reaction that also stimulates deeper brain regions involved

with mood.

TMS did prove to be very safe: Patients in the NeuroStar study

suffered no seizures or memory problems like shock therapy can cause,

or other reactions throughout the body. The chief complaint from the

sessions was headaches.

The FDA cleared the device after focusing just on a subset of the

patients initially enrolled — 164 who had failed one antidepressant

during their current bout of depression, not those who were more

severely treatment-resistant.

What's a modest benefit? About 24 percent who got TMS scored

significantly better on standard depression measures after six weeks,

compared with 12 percent who got the sham, says Janicak. That's about

as well as patients respond to a single antidepressant, he says.

Some reported remarkable improvement.

" One day it was like a light switch went off, " says Steve Newman, 60,

of Washington, D.C., who enrolled in the NeuroStar study at the

University of Pennsylvania in 2005.

Newman had suffered repeated bouts of depression since he was a

teenager, and drug after drug barely blunted it. He was considering

shock therapy when he heard about TMS.

After two weeks of treatment, Newman was wondering if he was getting

the sham — when suddenly, he started feeling lots better, and doctors

spotted a corresponding major improvement in his depression

measurements.

" I was awake. I was there, " says Newman who said he still gets what

he calls a " maintenance dose " of TMS about once a month.

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URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27285437/