March 2009:

How to treat severe cases of depression?

New treatment called TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) is promising to treat severe cases of depression. In this treatment, the patient sits in what looks like a dentist’s chair and a psychiatrist places a metal coil against your head. Rapid magnetic pulses penetrate the scalp and skull and produce a mild electrical current in the left prefrontal cortex of patient’s brain. The patient feels a tickling sensation and hears a loud tapping sound. The treatment lasts about 40 minutes and is done daily for four to six weeks. If you’re suffering from major depression, you could start feeling better within a few weeks.

“We’ve seen improvement in mood, sleep, appetite, energy level and a restoration of hopefulness and self-esteem,” says psychiatrist Sarah Lisanby, chief of the brain stimulation division at Columbia University.

Few months ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first TMS system, called NeuroStar, made by Neuronetics Inc to treat patients who haven’t responded to at least one antidepressant. Roughly 5% of U.S. adults suffer from major depression in a given year, and as many as 40% of them don’t get adequate relief from psychotherapy or drugs.

TMS is part of a new era in understanding and treating psychiatric disorders. Using high-tech imaging, scientists can now see depression in the brain, and some theorize that it involves an imbalance between the thinking areas in the cortex and the emotional areas of the limbic system. TMS is still in its infancy. Even proponents say patients who don’t respond to one antidepressant should try another drug before using TMS. For now, only a few U.S. centers plan to offer it. It isn’t yet covered by insurance, and prices are still being determined — one estimate is about $6,000 for a full course.

Scientists are studying whether TMS might be useful to combat schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and migraine headaches, and to fight depression in adolescents, who face a higher risk of suicide on antidepressants.

Dec 7, 2006:

Eli Lilly and Co. on Thursday said one of its experimental drugs was comparably effective in a mid-stage trial as the company’s widely used Zyprexa treatment, but without weight gains seen with Zyprexa. Company officials said at a meeting with industry analysts that the new product — which affects receptors to the brain messenger-chemical glutamate — showed the favorable results in a phase 2 trial that involved almost 200 patients.

The new product works through a new mechanism of action. Existing treatments work instead on dopamine and serotonin, two other messenger chemicals.