Using Neuroimaging and Deep Brain Stimulation to Provide Durable Relief for Severe Treatment-Resistant Depression with Dr. Mark George TRANSCEND Study TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Mark George is the principal psychiatric investigator of Abbott's TRANSCEND study and also a professor of psychiatry at MUSC Health Institute of Psychiatry. The TRANSCEND study represents a paradigm shift in depression treatment by investigating deep brain stimulation as a potential solution for treatment-resistant depression. This research involves surgically implanting a device that delivers targeted electrical stimulation to specific brain circuits. By reframing depression as a brain disorder rather than a chemical imbalance, this study emphasizes the biological nature of depression, offering an alternative to a condition with limited options.

Mark explains, "There are a lot of people, unfortunately, maybe a quarter of the people with depression who lead lives of misery where the medications and talking just don't get them back on their game. And so that's what we call treatment-resistant depression. And that's where I've spent my career trying to come up with new treatments."

"Well, so if the medications aren't working, you can try even more medicines, but the odds go way down. So there's a whole class of things where we actually stimulate the brain to try to, non-invasively and not using a pill, get in and change circuits in the brain. And those have started to really transform the care of treatment-resistant depression. There are several of them that are both non-invasive, and then others that are invasive."

"But the real holy grail would be for us to find the circuit or the spot in the brain and be able to put something there and then fix it. And then there you go, you live your life, and it would not be a pill that you have to take every day. And it would not have systemic side effects like medications. It wouldn't cause weight gain, sexual side effects, those kinds of things. So the real interest in the deep brain stimulation study that Abbott TRANSCEND is: "Could we stick a wire in the area of the brain that's not working right and pass very, very small amounts of electricity and really wake somebody up and get them out of their depression?"

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TRANSCEND

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