Health
New York woman reports improved mental health after undergoing brain electrode therapy
- Emily Hollenbeck struggled with recurring depression, comparing it to a gravitational force that made even moving difficult.
- In pursuit of relief, she opted for an experimental treatment referred to as deep brain stimulation.
- The treatment delivers targeted electrical impulses to the brain, similar to a pacemaker, showing promise in research despite some setbacks.
Emily Hollenbeck lived with a recurring depression she likened to a black hole, where gravity felt so strong and her limbs so heavy she could barely move. She knew the illness could kill her. Both her parents had taken their lives.
She was willing to try something extreme: Having electrodes implanted in her brain as part of an experimental therapy.
Researchers say the treatment — deep brain stimulation, or DBS — could eventually help many of the nearly 3 million Americans with depression that resists other treatments. It’s approved for conditions including Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy, and many doctors and patients hope it will become more widely available for depression soon.
DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY MAY IMPACT YOUNG ADULTS TWICE AS MUCH AS TEENS, HARVARD SURVEY FINDS
The treatment gives patients targeted electrical impulses, much like a pacemaker for the brain. A growing body of research is promising, with more underway — although two large studies that showed no advantage to using DBS for depression temporarily halted progress, and some scientists continue to raise concerns.
Emily Hollenbeck, a deep brain stimulation therapy patient, demonstrates an EEG device that records brain activity as she reacts to short videos at Mount Sinai’s “Q-Lab” in New York on Dec. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon)
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration has agreed to speed up its review of Abbott Laboratories’ request to use its DBS devices for treatment-resistant depression.
“At first I was blown away because the concept of it seems so intense. Like, it’s brain surgery. You have wires embedded in your brain,” Hollenbeck said. “But I also felt like at that point I tried everything, and I was desperate for an answer.”
‘NOTHING ELSE WAS WORKING’
Hollenbeck suffered from depression symptoms as a child growing up in poverty and occasional homelessness. Her first major bout happened in college, after her father’s suicide in 2009. Another hit during a Teach for America stint, leaving her almost immobilized and worried she’d lose her classroom job. She landed in the hospital.
She calls it “an on-and-off pattern.” After responding to medication for a while, she’d relapse.
She earned a doctorate in psychology, even after losing her mom in her last year of grad school. But the black hole always returned. At times, she said, she thought about ending her life.
She said she’d exhausted all options, including electroconvulsive therapy, when a doctor told her about DBS three years ago.
“Nothing else was working,” she said.
She became one of only a few hundred treated with DBS for depression.
Hollenbeck had surgery while sedated but awake. Dr. Brian Kopell, who directs Mount Sinai’s Center for Neuromodulation, placed thin metal electrodes her brain’s subcallosal cingulate cortex, which regulates emotional behavior and is involved in feelings of sadness.
The electrodes are connected by an internal wire to a device placed under the skin in her chest, which controls the amount of electrical stimulation and delivers constant low-voltage pulses.
Doctors say electricity speaks the brain’s language. Neurons communicate using electrical and chemical signals.
In normal brains, Kopell said, electrical activity reverberates unimpeded in all areas, in a sort of dance. In depression, the dancers get stuck within the brain’s emotional circuitry. DBS seems to “unstick the circuit,” he said.
Hollenbeck said the effect was almost immediate. She only wishes the therapy had been there for her parents.
THE TREATMENT
The road to this treatment stretches back two decades, when neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg led promising early research.
But setbacks followed. Large studies launched more than a dozen years ago showed no significant difference in response rates for treated and untreated groups.
Some later research, though, showed depression patients had stable, long-term relief from DBS when observed over years. Overall, across different brain targets, DBS for depression is associated with average response rates of 60%, one 2022 study said.
Mount Sinai’s team is one of the most prominent researching DBS for depression in the U.S. There, a neuroimaging expert uses brain images to locate the exact spot to place electrodes.
“We have a template, a blueprint of exactly where we’re going to go,” said Mayberg, a pioneer in DBS research and founding director of The Nash Family Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics at Mount Sinai.
Other research teams also tailor treatment, although methods differ slightly.
Abbott is launching a big clinical trial this year, ahead of a potential FDA decision.
But some doctors are skeptical, pointing to potential complications such as bleeding, stroke or infection after surgery.
Dr. Stanley Caroff, a University of Pennsylvania emeritus professor of psychiatry, said scientists still don’t know the exact brain pathways or mechanisms that produce depression. And it’s also tough to select the right patients for DBS, he said.
“I believe from a psychiatric point of view, the science is not there,” he said of DBS for depression.
MOVING FORWARD
Hollenbeck acknowledges DBS hasn’t been a cure-all; she still takes medicines for depression and needs ongoing care.
She recently visited Mayberg in her office and discussed recovery. “It’s not about being happy all the time,” the doctor told her. “It’s about making progress.”
That’s what researchers are studying now — how to track progress.
Recent research by Mayberg and others in the journal Nature showed it’s possible to provide a “readout” of how someone is doing at any given time. Analyzing the brain activity of DBS patients, researchers found a unique pattern that reflects the recovery process. This provides an objective way to observe people’s improvement and distinguish between impending depression and typical mood fluctuations.
Scientists are confirming those findings using newer DBS devices in a group of patients that includes Hollenbeck.
DEPRESSION COULD BE ‘ZAPPED’ AWAY WITH BRAIN STIMULATION, NEW STUDY SUGGESTS: ‘BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE’
She and other participants do their part largely at home. She gives regular brain recordings by logging onto a tablet and putting a remote above the pacemaker-like device in her chest. She answers questions about how she feels. And she records videos, analyzed for such things as facial expression and speech.
Occasionally, she goes into Mount Sinai’s “Q-Lab,” where scientists do quantitative research collecting all sorts of data, including how she moves in a virtual forest or makes circles with her arms. Like many other patients, she moves faster now that she’s doing better.
On a recent morning, Hollenbeck brushed her hair aside to reveal scars on her chest and head from DBS surgery — signs of how far she’s come.
She takes walks in the park and visits libraries, which were a refuge in childhood. She no longer worries that normal life challenges will trigger crushing depression.
“If I hadn’t had DBS, I’m pretty sure I would not be alive today,” she said.
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A popular class of weight-loss drugs may prevent life-threatening cardiac complications by opening microscopic blood vessels that often remain blocked after a heart attack, according to a study published this week in Nature Communications.
The research, led by the University of Bristol and University College London, identified a biological brain-gut-heart signaling pathway.
This discovery appears to explain how GLP-1 drugs — which mimic glucagon-like peptide-1, a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar and appetite — protect heart tissue from a condition known as “no-reflow.”
“In nearly half of all heart attack patients, tiny blood vessels within the heart muscle remain narrowed, even after the main artery is cleared during emergency medical treatment,” Dr. Svetlana Mastitskaya, the study’s lead author and a senior lecturer at Bristol Medical School, said in a press release.
“This results in a complication known as ‘no-reflow,’ where blood is unable to reach certain parts of the heart tissue.”
In nearly half of all heart attack patients, tiny capillaries (blood vessels) remain narrowed even after the main blocked artery is cleared. (iStock)
This lack of blood flow increases the risk of heart failure and death within a year. GLP-1 medications could prevent this, according to the researchers.
How it works
When the GLP-1 hormone is released in the gut or administered as a drug, it sends a signal to the brain, which then sends a signal to the heart that switches on special potassium channels in tiny cells called pericytes.
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When these channels open, the pericytes relax, which allows the small blood vessels (capillaries) to widen and improve blood flow to the heart muscle, the researchers noted.
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The new study used animal models and cellular imaging to track how GLP-1 interacts with heart tissue. When the researchers removed the potassium channels, the drugs no longer protected the heart — confirming they play a key role.
The findings suggest that existing GLP-1 medications, already used for type 2 diabetes and obesity, could be repurposed as emergency treatments. (iStock)
The findings suggest that existing GLP-1 medications, already used for type 2 diabetes and obesity, could be repurposed as emergency treatments during or immediately after a heart attack to reduce tissue damage.
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The researchers noted several limitations, including that the study relied on animal models.
Clinical trials are necessary to determine whether the brain-gut-heart pathway operates with the same timing and efficacy in humans.
While the study highlights the drug’s immediate benefits during a heart attack, it des not establish whether long-term use of these drugs provides a pre-existing level of protection. (iStock)
Additionally, while the study highlights the drug’s immediate benefits during a heart attack, it does not establish whether long-term use of the medication provides a pre-existing level of protection.
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The research was primarily funded by the British Heart Foundation.
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Collagen supplements have exploded in popularity, touted as everything from an anti-aging miracle to a muscle recovery booster.
But a sweeping new review conducted by U.K. researchers suggests that while collagen may help improve skin elasticity and ease arthritis pain, it does little for athletic performance or wrinkle reduction.
Researchers from Anglia Ruskin University analyzed 16 systematic reviews and 113 randomized controlled trials involving nearly 8,000 participants worldwide, which they say is the most extensive evaluation of collagen’s health effects to date.
The review found consistent evidence that collagen supplementation improves skin elasticity and hydration over time and provides significant relief from osteoarthritis-related joint pain and stiffness, according to findings published in Aesthetic Surgery Journal Open Forum.
A large U.K. review found that collagen supplements may improve skin elasticity and hydration over time. (iStock)
The researchers, however, did not find meaningful improvements in post-exercise muscle recovery, soreness or tendon mechanical properties (strength, springiness and stretch resistance).
“Collagen is not a cure-all, but it does have credible benefits when used consistently over time, particularly for skin and osteoarthritis,” co-author Lee Smith, professor of public health at Anglia Ruskin University, said in a statement.
EXPERIMENTAL SERUM SHOWS PROMISE IN REVERSING BALDNESS WITHIN 20 DAYS
“Our findings show clear benefits in key areas of healthy aging, while also dispelling some of the myths surrounding its use,” Smith added.
Collagen, the most abundant protein in the body, supports skin, bones, tendons, cartilage and connective tissue, according to experts. Natural collagen production begins to drop in early adulthood and declines more sharply with age.
The study found that collagen supplements may help reduce joint pain and stiffness in people with osteoarthritis. (iStock)
The review found that long-term collagen supplementation was linked to improved skin firmness and hydration, but did not help skin roughness — a proxy for visible wrinkles.
Benefits appear to accumulate gradually, suggesting that collagen should not be viewed as an “anti-wrinkle ‘quick fix,’ but as a foundational dermal support for individuals seeking holistic skin maintenance,” the researchers said.
“If we define anti-aging as a product or technique designed to prevent the appearance of getting older, then I believe our findings do support this claim for some parameters,” Smith told the BBC. “For example, an improvement in skin tone and moisture is associated with a more youthful-looking appearance.”
Collagen supplementation was linked to reduced pain and stiffness in people with osteoarthritis, with stronger benefits seen over longer periods of use, and showed modest improvements in muscle mass and tendon structure that may support healthy aging.
Collagen did not significantly improve skin roughness, a marker of visible wrinkles. (iStock)
However, it did not show meaningful results when used as a fast-acting sports performance supplement, and evidence for benefits related to cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure and oral health was mixed or inconclusive.
Dr. Daniel Ghiyam, a California-based physician and longevity specialist, said the findings align with what he sees in clinical practice.
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“Collagen is a targeted support tool, not a foundation of health or performance,” Ghiyam, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. “When marketed that way, it makes sense. When marketed as a cure-all, it doesn’t hold up to the data.”
The authors noted that while many previous collagen studies have received financial support from the supplement industry, the current review did not receive industry funding.
Experts say collagen supplements may offer modest benefits for skin hydration and joint comfort, but they are not a cure-all. (iStock)
The team called for more high-quality clinical trials examining long-term outcomes, optimal dosages and differences between collagen sources, such as marine, bovine and plant-based alternatives.
Among its limitations, the review could not determine whether certain forms of collagen work better than others or what the optimal regimen should be.
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While the review included randomized controlled trials, the quality of the studies varied, with newer research generally showing stronger results.
Experts say more data and studies are needed to build on the findings. They also noted that diet plays a crucial role in skin health.
Collagen supplements, often sold as powders or pills, may improve skin elasticity and ease joint pain, experts say. (iStock)
Dr. Erum Ilyas, a Pennsylvania-based dermatologist and chair of dermatology at Drexel University College of Medicine, noted that the review analyzed previously published meta-analyses rather than generating new primary data.
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“At this time, I have not seen sufficiently strong independent evidence to routinely recommend collagen supplements to my patients,” Ilyas, who was not involved in the review, told Fox News Digital.
“Although some studies show modest improvements in markers such as hydration and elasticity, there remains limited independent, biopsy-confirmed evidence demonstrating sustained increases in dermal collagen content,” she added.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the researchers for comment.
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