Electrical Impulses Cure Depression?

[Kindria2000]

Last night my father and I were coming home from the mall and we turned on NPR (National Public Radio.) There was a really interesting peice on how Dr. Helen Mayberg of Emory University had implanted small wires the size of a human hair into Area 25 of the brain. Apparently the higher the electrical impulse, the happier and more peacful the patient became. One even said that when the procedure was applyed to him, it seemed as if someone had pulled up the shades and everything seemed brighter. One female patient said to have an immense sense of calm and rest and as soon as they lowered the power going into her brain she knew that they had changed something.

 

Now I have a few questions:

 

1.) Were is area 25 of the brain? I've been researching for the last hour or so, and I cant find anything refering to it.

 

2.) If this process can cure depression, could it also cure other behavioral ailments?

 

For a quick blurb of the broadcast I heard last night visit this NPR article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4627438

 

The reason for my questions relate to my other thread concerning the alteration of anti-social behavior: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=766

[atinymonkey]

1) The hippocampus and the subgenual cingulate, I think. Pwetty picture : -

 

 

2) Ones linked to depression, probably. More than you'd think but less than you'd hope. It's also rather extreme, and only really for clinically depressed patients.

 

 

Oh, and your thread is this one : -

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7664

 

Not the one about differential equations you linked to

[Glider]

Area 25 refers to Brodmann's area 25 which is the subcallosal gyrus. A part of the anterior cingulate gyrus that curves under the corpus callosum.

[Kindria2000]

Oh' date=' and your thread is this one : -

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7664

 

Not the one about differential equations you linked to [/quote']

 

oops hahha, I missed the 4 at the end when I copied it >_< heheh thanks.

[Auburngirl05]

This topic always reminds me of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"...has anyone else seen it?

 

My grandmother had this treatment for a short time, until they realized it was incompatible medications that were affecting her. I'm not sure about applications for other behavioral issues, I know they use it on joints for physical therapy sometimes, though.

 

Are you researching electrotherapy in particular or depression treatments in particular? One interesting topic for depression studies it the role of light and the use of artificial light boxes as a treatment.

[Kindria2000]

Well honestly I'm looking into a way to stop violent antisocial behavior. I know it in most likeliness isn’t possible, but I'm trying to cover all bases. Direct contact to the brain seems alot easier then trying to find a way to get a chemical through the blood brain barrier and have it affect just one part of the brain. Like I said, I'm looking at all possible solutions, and this has just become a candidate.

 

Read this for a better idea of my motives:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7664