Depression Descriptions (And new links)

The misunderstanding of depression is terrifying.  For a disease that is real, there are so many people who still believe depression is a weakness.  I've recently run across a couple of good descriptions of the horror of this disease and the debilitating effects it has.

The first comes from a book published in 2005.  The book is primarily about stress and how humans deal with stress in comparison to other animals.  From my limited understanding of the studies discussed in the book, the bio-chemical interactions haven't really panned out for finding cures or treatments. However, the author's description of the depths of depression is one of the best I've read - especially considering he has never experienced it himself.  The book is "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers".  The link will take you to Amazon just because that's where I got mine.  Chapter 14 brings Depression into the mix with the stress that  the author, Robert M. Sapolsky, covers.  For anyone who has loved ones who "don't get it",  Sapolsky contrasts the "blahs" with the paralyzing symptomology of major depression in a layman's terms, in the very first part of that chapter.  The parts after get a little more clinical but still very understandable, going over the biology of depression, etc. 

I recommend this because one of my loved ones happened to read it.  She and I had a very meaningful discussion about my condition and I finally felt like she understood.  (Again, if you do pick up the book, be aware that the chemical studies that sounded very promising haven't really panned out.  The Glucocorticoids, according to my team, are markers but not predictors, of depression.  You don't have to get that in-depth into the book in order to use the Depression section to help others understand the disease).

The second great description I found comes from TED.  Ted.com is one of my favorite pleasures.  Some of the greatest minds and speakers are found on TED on an amazingly wide variety of topics.  Check it out next time you've flipped through all the TV channels and found nothing.  The talks are usually under 20 minutes (which is great for my own ADD).  Inspiration and education.

The TED talk that blew me away is by Andrew Solomon.  It is titled: "Andrew Solomon, the secret we share".  I've not read it, but he wrote a book that obviously won some great kudos (from TED: Solomon’s last book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, won the 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, and won fourteen other national awards.)

Regarding the anonymous posting from last month and the Broaden Study, my own belief and hope is that everyone realizes this is a looooong-term study.  I believe they had implants in 2013, though I have no specifics, logically one would presume that their 'research' would continue for 4 years and 6 months from the last implant.  But, that would be logic.  I know from following one of the original Canadians that she has continued to improve.  But she has Canadian medicine - who knows, maybe there is a loophole in the new Affordable Care mumbo-jumbo that would make insurance companies accept our "pre-existing" conditions and DBS treatment for those who have gotten relief.

Herb's commentary on the FDA and trial studies has a lot of merit and I encourage anyone interested in what has happened in the past follow his links.  I pray history doesn't repeat itself.  

Progress

As I've hoped and hypothesized, Dr. Mayberg, who is one of the founders of using DBS for depression, has released research under a NIH grant relating to being able to diagnose what treatment method will work best for each individual with depression.  i.e. Run the test and it will show whether an SSRI, SSNI, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) or something more radical like DBS stands the best chance of working.  (They haven't refined it that far but the initial research is fantastic).

In the linked article,  they correlated activity in the brain called the "anterior insula" with CBT and a SSRI.  Based on either low or high activity in the insula, the type of treatment that worked best for the patient has a high correlation. Another article (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/806426) gets a little more technical and the actual JAMA article is at http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1696349.

Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me.  Of course this is all very preliminary work but it's a giant step forward.

For those interested in DBS, there are a number of research studies using different locations in the brain.  There are links to the side and in the blogs that refer to the actual locations and that the current theories hold that, like many things in the brain, depression is a circuit of sorts.  That circuit runs through a number of areas and the current research is showing that there are a number of places that DBS works. Finding the place that works the best or to extend this latest research, using some type of imaging may lead to prescribing a certain anti-depressant, seeing a therapist, or in severe cases, which place in the brain to insert some electricity.Woo hoo.