According to the New York Times (10/4, Belluck), “the first study of individualized brain stimulation to treat severe depression” now “raises the possibility the method may help people who don’t respond to other therapies.” HealthDay (10/4, Mozes) reports on a “new approach…called ‘closed-loop neuromodulation’” for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression. Once a “specific depression circuitry” is “identified,” the patient then undergoes “minimally invasive surgery to implant what the researchers described as a ‘pacemaker for the brain.’” The device scans automatically “for depression-specific brain activity patterns,” and when “such patterns are detected,” it “sends out short pulses of highly targeted electrical stimulation” with the goal of short-circuiting “the specific neural activity that gives rise to a patient’s debilitating depression.” A case study describing how the device works in a particular patient was published online in a brief communication in the journal Nature Medicine. (SOURCE: APA Headlines)