Warning: This Article Discusses Suicide and Suicidal Thoughts.

We're going to talk about suicide and suicidal thoughts, so if that's hard for you to hear about, consider not reading this. We only know the patient as Sarah, who wanted to keep her full identity a secret but in an audio recording with researchers, she says she'd been struggling with severe depression for years. Her daily life had become so restricted and impoverished by depression that she felt tortured by each day. She forced herself to resist the suicidal impulses that overtook her several times an hour.

She tried every type of therapy and treatment with no results until researchers at UC San Francisco recruited her for experimental therapy back in 2020. They implanted a matchbook-sized device similar to this one in her brain. Now, this device is designed to detect when Sarah starts becoming depressed, then it sends electrical pulses through Sarah's brain to prevent that depression. This is a form of treatment known as deep brain stimulation, and it's already used to treat disorders like Parkinson's disease. In fact, it's been used as a treatment for depression before with mixed results, but this is the first time the stimulation has ever been customized to the patient.

People with depression are very different from each other, and generally, depression therapy has been a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Dr. Andrew Crystal is one of the lead authors on the study, saying that "the particular kinds of symptoms a person has matters because we're trying to match how we intervene to so that it fixes the specific kind of problem that they have." To personalize treatment for Sarah, they started by creating a map of her neural activity. They spent 10 days monitoring her neural patterns and stimulating different areas of her brain and tracking changes in her mood.

What they saw was that depending on where you stimulated, you could achieve several different kinds of effects, some of which the person could find beneficial. Sarah remembers that first time that stimulation took away her depression, saying "the aha moment occurred... I felt the most intensely joyous sensation and my depression was a distant nightmare for a moment." By the end of it, they developed what they call Sarah's depression circuit – a blueprint for what Sarah's brain looks like when she's depressed.

Now, with this blueprint in hand, they could customize a deep brain stimulation device to do two things: first, it could recognize when Sarah's neural activity matched her depression circuit; and second, when it did detect that pattern, the device could stimulate the part of her brain that had already shown to best relieve those symptoms. It functions in an automated mode where it's sort of like a house thermostat – keeping her depression in check and normalizing it. This is called a closed-loop model.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis woman was severely depressed now she says she has her life back and it's not thanks to drugs or years and years of therapy but a device that's implanted in her brain according to the world health organization there are around 264 million people who suffer from depression and though there is still so much we don't know about depression one thing the medical community does know is that there is no one-size-fits-all treatment and that notion is at the core of an experiment that appears to have successfully treated a woman's severe depression using a brain implant now a warning we're going to be talking about suicide and suicidal thoughts so if that sort of thing is hard for you to hear about maybe consider not watching this we only know the patient as sarah she wanted to keep her full identity a secret but in an audio recording with researchers she says she'd been struggling with severe depression for years my daily life had become so restricted and impoverished by depression that i felt tortured by each day i forced myself to resist the suicidal impulses that overtook me several times an hour she says she tried every type of therapy and treatment with no results until researchers at uc san francisco recruited her for experimental therapy back in 2020 they implanted a matchbook sized device similar to this one in her brain now this device is designed to detect when sarah starts becoming depressed then it sends electrical pulses through sarah's brain to prevent that depression now this is a form of treatment known as deep brain stimulation and it's already used to treat disorders like parkinson's dbs as a treatment for depression actually isn't new it's been studied before with mixed results but this is the first time the stimulation has ever been customized to the patient people with depression are very different from each other and generally depression therapy has been a one-size-fits-all endeavor dr andrew crystal is one of the lead authors on the study for us the particular kinds of symptoms a person has matters because we're trying to match how we intervene to so that it fixes the specific kind of problem that they have to personalize treatment for sarah they started by creating a map of her neural activity they spent 10 days monitoring her neural patterns stimulating different areas of her brain and tracking changes in her mood what we saw is that depending on where you stimulate you could achieve several different kinds of effects a number of them that a person could find beneficial sarah remembers that first time that stimulation took away her depression the aha moment occurred i felt the most intensely joyous sensation and my depression was a distant nightmare for a moment and by the end of it the researchers developed what they call sarah's depression circuit the question was which places that we stimulated it led to the set of changes that aligned with our patient symptoms and it was one that aligned best with their symptoms think of it as a blueprint for what sarah's brain looks like when she's depressed now now they had this blueprint they could customize a dbs device to do two things first it could recognize when sarah's neural activity matched her depression circuit and when it did detect that pattern the device could stimulate the part of her brain that had already shown to best relieve those symptoms it functions in an automated mode where it's sort of keeping her depression in a way where it's not present functioning kind of like a house thermostat it's called a closed loop model in a way a house thermostat might keep your temperature in your house level this keeps the depression from increasing when it starts to increase stimulation kicks in and makes it go away and normalizes it sarah's been living with the device in her brain for more than a year now and she says it's kept her depression at bay and allowed her to return to her normal life when the researchers implanted the chronic device and turned it on for the first time my life took an immediate upward turn hobbies i used to distract myself from suicidal thoughts suddenly became pleasurable again i was able to make small decisions about what to eat without becoming stuck in a morass of indecision for hours sarah doesn't physically feel anything when the device activates and it's important to point out that the device isn't keeping her in some sort of euphoric state all the time like common medications do it's only kicking in when she starts to feel depressed the doctors say the battery should last about 10 years before it needs replacing sarah says she hopes that this research will help people understand that depression is often a physical disease that can't just be willed away with a positive attitude i heard from society i just absorbed my entire life this idea well you just have to keep going you have to pull up your socks and pick yourself up and you know and then you'll be better and it just reinforced the depression it made me feel like i was the world's worst patient that it was a per my own personal moral failing no one ever says to somebody with parkinson's oh if you just you know have a positive attitude and bear up and do this you'll cure yourself no one says that to someone with cancer now sarah is just the first patient to undergo this procedure but two more are already lined up the team leading the study plans to eventually test on a total of 12 people and dr crystal told me that this procedure is at best three to five years away from fda approval but for those millions of people suffering from depression there's now a treatment to be hopeful about and hold on forthis woman was severely depressed now she says she has her life back and it's not thanks to drugs or years and years of therapy but a device that's implanted in her brain according to the world health organization there are around 264 million people who suffer from depression and though there is still so much we don't know about depression one thing the medical community does know is that there is no one-size-fits-all treatment and that notion is at the core of an experiment that appears to have successfully treated a woman's severe depression using a brain implant now a warning we're going to be talking about suicide and suicidal thoughts so if that sort of thing is hard for you to hear about maybe consider not watching this we only know the patient as sarah she wanted to keep her full identity a secret but in an audio recording with researchers she says she'd been struggling with severe depression for years my daily life had become so restricted and impoverished by depression that i felt tortured by each day i forced myself to resist the suicidal impulses that overtook me several times an hour she says she tried every type of therapy and treatment with no results until researchers at uc san francisco recruited her for experimental therapy back in 2020 they implanted a matchbook sized device similar to this one in her brain now this device is designed to detect when sarah starts becoming depressed then it sends electrical pulses through sarah's brain to prevent that depression now this is a form of treatment known as deep brain stimulation and it's already used to treat disorders like parkinson's dbs as a treatment for depression actually isn't new it's been studied before with mixed results but this is the first time the stimulation has ever been customized to the patient people with depression are very different from each other and generally depression therapy has been a one-size-fits-all endeavor dr andrew crystal is one of the lead authors on the study for us the particular kinds of symptoms a person has matters because we're trying to match how we intervene to so that it fixes the specific kind of problem that they have to personalize treatment for sarah they started by creating a map of her neural activity they spent 10 days monitoring her neural patterns stimulating different areas of her brain and tracking changes in her mood what we saw is that depending on where you stimulate you could achieve several different kinds of effects a number of them that a person could find beneficial sarah remembers that first time that stimulation took away her depression the aha moment occurred i felt the most intensely joyous sensation and my depression was a distant nightmare for a moment and by the end of it the researchers developed what they call sarah's depression circuit the question was which places that we stimulated it led to the set of changes that aligned with our patient symptoms and it was one that aligned best with their symptoms think of it as a blueprint for what sarah's brain looks like when she's depressed now now they had this blueprint they could customize a dbs device to do two things first it could recognize when sarah's neural activity matched her depression circuit and when it did detect that pattern the device could stimulate the part of her brain that had already shown to best relieve those symptoms it functions in an automated mode where it's sort of keeping her depression in a way where it's not present functioning kind of like a house thermostat it's called a closed loop model in a way a house thermostat might keep your temperature in your house level this keeps the depression from increasing when it starts to increase stimulation kicks in and makes it go away and normalizes it sarah's been living with the device in her brain for more than a year now and she says it's kept her depression at bay and allowed her to return to her normal life when the researchers implanted the chronic device and turned it on for the first time my life took an immediate upward turn hobbies i used to distract myself from suicidal thoughts suddenly became pleasurable again i was able to make small decisions about what to eat without becoming stuck in a morass of indecision for hours sarah doesn't physically feel anything when the device activates and it's important to point out that the device isn't keeping her in some sort of euphoric state all the time like common medications do it's only kicking in when she starts to feel depressed the doctors say the battery should last about 10 years before it needs replacing sarah says she hopes that this research will help people understand that depression is often a physical disease that can't just be willed away with a positive attitude i heard from society i just absorbed my entire life this idea well you just have to keep going you have to pull up your socks and pick yourself up and you know and then you'll be better and it just reinforced the depression it made me feel like i was the world's worst patient that it was a per my own personal moral failing no one ever says to somebody with parkinson's oh if you just you know have a positive attitude and bear up and do this you'll cure yourself no one says that to someone with cancer now sarah is just the first patient to undergo this procedure but two more are already lined up the team leading the study plans to eventually test on a total of 12 people and dr crystal told me that this procedure is at best three to five years away from fda approval but for those millions of people suffering from depression there's now a treatment to be hopeful about and hold on for\n"