Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience (Jun 2011)

Modulating affect, cognition and behavior – prospects of deep brain stimulation for treatment resistant psychiatric disorders

  • Thomas E. Schlaepfer,
  • Thomas E. Schlaepfer,
  • Bettina eBewernick,
  • Sarah eKayser,
  • Diane eLenz

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2011.00029
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5

Abstract

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Most patients suffering from psychiatric disorders respond to combina-tions of psycho- and psychopharmacotherapy, however there are patients who profit little if anything even after many years of treatment. Since about a decade different modalities of targeted neuromodulation – among them most prominently – Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) - are being actively researched as putative approaches to very treatment resistant forms of those disorders. Recently, promising pilot data have been re-ported both for Major Depression (MD) and Obsessive-Compulsive Disor-der (OCD). Given the fact that patients studied had been treated unsuc-cessfully for many years renders these findings remarkable. Remarkable is the fact, that in case of the long-term studies underway for MD, patients show a stable response. This gives hope to a substantial percentage of therapy-resistant psychiatric patients requiring new therapy approaches. There are no fundamental ethic objections to its use in psychiatric disor-ders, but until substantial clinical data is available, mandatory standards are needed. DBS is a unique and very promising method for the treat-ment of therapy-resistant psychiatric patients. The method allows ma-nipulating pathological neuronal networks in a very precise way.

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