Brain Scans Can Ease Depression?

[Ramen]

Click on the link below for the article.

http://www.healthscout.com/news/402/1503369/main.html

[Friar Bellows]

Originally posted by Notorious PIG
Click on the link below for the article.

http://www.healthscout.com/news/402/1503369/main.html

That would be wonderful if true. I notice that the article only mentioned bipolar depression. Does it work on unipolar depression?

[Jackalope]

Actually, I wouldn't be that suprised. Some people get weird, creepy, nervous feelings inside the scanner--this applies to open bore MRI as well, however because open bore machines tend to use much lower field strengths, it's not quite as common. The type of unease that patients feel is not claustrophobia (though most MRI machines can induce that without problem), but closer to what people report in "haunted" houses. The theory is that the magnetic field is affecting the brain. I know someone who's reported a faux "religious" experience from putting a bulk degauser to his temple and setting it off, so the idea might not be so strange.

The thing to check next would be if scanner field strength has any effect on the perceived improvement. Open bore MRI tend to have field strengths of anywhere from .2T to 1.5T. Closed bore machines more commonly have field strengths of 1.5T to 3T. Physics labs may have machines that run anywhere from 5-6T (at that strength, it'll pull change out of your pockets and yank your wrist up if you've got a watch on--or in the case of one lab accident I saw, it propelled a cart with gas cylinders on it straight into the machine).

Other factors I can think of: a brain scan takes much longer than just about anything other than a full spine scan. You also wear a focusing grid that looks like a catcher's mask on your head, which would intensify the effect. Plus, in a brain scan, the machine is focused on your head (as opposed to other types of scans).

All that said, a brain scan did nada for/to me. Other than proving that I didn't have MS. I personally found the spinal scan to be more bothersome, because it was harder to lie that still for 45 minutes.

[anthrosciguy]

Interesting idea, but an obvious problem there is that they had no method to check for placebo effect. That could be done, but you'd have to disconnect the magnetic business, add some sound effects, and run a double-blind study.

[Ramen]

Originally posted by Jackalope

All that said, a brain scan did nada for/to me. Other than proving that I didn't have MS. I personally found the spinal scan to be more bothersome, because it was harder to lie that still for 45 minutes.

Jackalope,

According to

http://search.boston.com/dailyglobe2/001/nation/Early_McLean_tests_show_brain_scan_eases_depression+.shtml (http://tinyurl.com/2acea)

"The McLean team speculates that the magnetic pulse they happened to use somehow 'matches the natural firing rhythm of brain cells', according to a McLean press release quoting researcher Michael Rohan, an imaging physicist."

So, perhaps they just weren't using the right pulse on your MRI.

Link Note:The link seems to change itself. After the http://
the following should display...

"search.boston.com/dailyglobe2/001/nation/Early_McLean_tests_show_brain_scan_eases_depression+.shtml"

{Edited to replace URL with http://tinyurl.com/2acea instead.}

[Ramen]

Originally posted by anthrosciguy
Interesting idea, but an obvious problem there is that they had no method to check for placebo effect. That could be done, but you'd have to disconnect the magnetic business, add some sound effects, and run a double-blind study.

anthrosciguy,

From this (http://search.boston.com/dailyglobe2/001/nation/Early_McLean_tests_show_brain_scan_eases_depression+.shtml) link...

"The study showed little mood-lifting effect on healthy subjects. It also checked the results against subjects who were given ''sham'' scans.

3 of 10 patients who received phony scans reported feeling better."

[Jackalope]

That link doesn't work for me.

[Ramen]

Jackalope,

If you click on the link, for some reason it doesn't come up the same as I've posted it. It adds stuff you need to delete. You have to edit the web address to the following...

http://search.boston.com/dailyglobe2/001/nation/Early_McLean_tests_show_brain_scan_eases_depression+.shtml

If you click on the above link, it will for some reason bring up the following...

http://search.boston.com/dailyglobe2/001/nation/%20Early_McLean_tests_show_brain_scan_eases_depressio<br%20/>n+.shtml

...which doesn't work.

You have to delete the first "%20", then delete the "<br%20/>" and make sure that the address ends with "depression+.shtml"

http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/sad/confused2.gif

[Jackalope]

The mistake appears to be in your uBB code, as that's what appears when I mouse over it. I'm going to try putting a cleaned up URL below:
http://search.boston.com/dailyglobe2/001/nation/Early_McLean_tests_show_brain_scan_eases_depression+.shtml (http://tinyurl.com/2acea)

Nope. It's a bug in uBB. I'd guess the URL is too long. Or some "smart" section of code is screwing up.

{Edited to replace URL with http://tinyurl.com/2acea instead}

[seanie]

Electric shock therapy can work in snapping people out of depression (albeit with side effects) but I've never heard an explanation why. Maybe this messes with the brain to similar effect.

[Bill]

Originally posted by Jackalope
The mistake appears to be in your uBB code, as that's what appears when I mouse over it. I'm going to try putting a cleaned up URL below:
http://tinyurl.com/2acea

Nope. It's a bug in uBB. I'd guess the URL is too long. Or some "smart" section of code is screwing up. Yes, there is a bug in the software with the handling of long URLs. Sorry. The vBulletin 3.0 upgrade should happen later this month (they are up to Release Candidate 2 at the moment). Meanwhile, please feel free to solve this problem by using the Tiny URL Service (http://tinyurl.com/) to compress any long URL down to something that our current software can handle. Sorry for this inconvenience!

== Bill

[Jackalope]

And having finally read that article...they weren't using a standard MRI setup. This would be a fMRI (functional MRI, a new high-speed, high-resolution type of scanner). Which mostly means that the software controlling the scanner is different. The magnets are certainly still the same, though they need to use a machine with a higher field strength to get fast enough scans.

[Roland98]

Mod Note:

I've split out the portions of this discussion pertaining to treating depression into this thread (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72956). If you'd like to continue the discussion, please do so in the new thread.

Thank you,

Roland98
S&S Moderator