Early McLean tests show brain scan eases depression

Boston Globe ^ | 1/1/2004 | Carey Goldberg

[RJCogburn]

McLean Hospital researchers have stumbled upon a possible new treatment for depression, finding that performing a novel type of brain scan on bipolar patients can quickly and significantly lift a patient's mood, apparently because the scanner's unusual magnetic fields affect the electrical workings of their brains.

[cynicom]

Tinfoil hat time.

[DB]

Mu-metal hat time...

[StatesEnemy]

"Studies have found a large placebo effect among subjects in clinical trials of depression treatments."

Interesting. Gives a bit of credence to "it's all in your head"

[DefCon]

I think I will try mounting a couple of big magnets inside my tinfoil hat and see what happens.

[RJCogburn]

Three of 10 patients who received phony scans reported feeling better.

Yes, studies on all sorts of therapies, for all sorts of conditions, consistently show placebo effect in this range.

[prognostigaator]

Footnote:
All patients scanned thus far have been liberals .........

[Bluntpoint]

I will take ect treatments any day over sugar pills:

Although it does affect my short term memory!

Although it does affect my short term memory!

And it does affect my short term memory!

[Diogenesis]

1. You can help patients by speaking with them, better than scanning them.

2. Some endogenous depression does result from oxidation of copper, and probably iron.
That would take an electric charge to reduce them, not a magnetic field.

3. The use of magnetic fields on patients is old, so (most likely)

[Kozak]

I remember reading that patients with severe depression who were supposed to receive ECT ( electro convulsive therapy ) showed improvement even though the machine they were being treated with was MALFUNCTIONING and not delivering the shock.
Those patients are paralyzed and sedated prior to treatment ( avoid that nasty "One Flew Over the Cookoo"s nest muscle spasms ), so the only way to know if the shock was delivered was by watching the gauges. Apparently the preparation, sedation, paralysis and intubation was just as therapeutic.

[cynicom]

Rooster finds such stories as this. Makes a man wonder bout rooster. hehehehe

[MrConfettiMan]

I've been getting MRIs of my brain roughly every three months since August '01, to keep tabs on a brain tumor (sucks to be me :).

Funny, the jackhammer sound of the machine almost always lulls me to sleep. I kid you not.

[Lazamataz]

35 centimeters of faraday-cage hat time.

[Bluntpoint]

[Lazamataz]

Funny, the jackhammer sound of the machine almost always lulls me to sleep. I kid you not.

Have you checked into the possibility of a brain abnormality? ;^)

[Ichneumon]

I will take ect treatments any day over sugar pills:

[Naomi4]

Thank you for posting this. Some of us out there in the hinterland have friends and family members who suffer from depression.

This gives hope that someday there may be a treatment that is effective and does not drug the patient.

[Bluntpoint]

http://www.tntluoma.com/opera/beyond30/images/blessedaretheflexible-500x375.jpg

[tubebender]

Let's ask Jack Nicolson how "Shock Therapy" worked for him in "ONE FLEW OVER THE COOKOOS NEST"

Do they still do that treatment today?

[RLK]

A more benigh form of electroshock.