A pacemaker for your brain? It helped one woman with her crippling depression – GLOBAL

February 21, 2024

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 three million Americans like her with depression that resists other treatments. It’s approved for conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy, and many doctors and patients hope it will become more widely available for depression soon.

Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/10307407/pacemaker-brain-depression/