Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy: What It Is And How To Use It
The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Health systems, due to the lack of mental health personnel, usually resort to prescribing antidepressants to treat cases of depression and, to a lesser extent, psychological therapy is provided to patients.
A recently emerged alternative is accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapydeveloped by a group of scientists from Stanford University, which promises hopeful results in those cases in which depression does not subside after using the usual treatments.
Accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy has been developed by a group of scientists from the prestigious Stanford University in order to provide an alternative treatment in cases where depression has resisted conventional treatments (e.g. , psychotropic drugs and psychological therapy), promising positive results.
In this article we will explain how this innovative treatment for depression is applied and what were the results obtained by this group of researchers.
What is accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy?
This therapy arose in response to the current situation in which there has been a considerable increase in cases of depressionso new treatments are needed to combat depression that are fast-acting and also offer a high degree of effectiveness, while also being safe and tolerable for patients.
“Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy” (SAINT) from Stanford University School of Medicine is a therapeutic alternative to antidepressants and psychological therapy that It has been recently developed for those cases of persistent depressionhaving given positive results in more than 80% of the participants in the study, although it should be noted that the sample was small, so it is necessary to know the results by performing it with a larger sample to see if it is a reliable therapy.
Accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy It is applied through intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS)which is a type of non-invasive brain stimulation treatment for the treatment of persistent depression that has resisted other treatments such as psychotherapy and antidepressants.
This therapy suggests that the intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) protocol could have been improved following the following premises:
For its application, 50 sessions of 10 minutes are administered for 5 days in a row (10 sessions/day) at 90% of the motor threshold at rest., receiving 1,800 pulses per session, with a 50-minute break between sessions. Before its application, Stanford researchers preliminarily evaluated the tolerability, feasibility and effectiveness of accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy so that patients are safe and do not suffer any type of adverse effect when receiving the treatment.
Experimental Study on Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy
Everyone who came forward to participate in the study was prescribed through the Stanford University Depression Research Clinic.
To carry out the study on accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy, of all the volunteers who presented themselves to participate, 22 subjects between 19 and 78 years of age (13 women and 9 men) who met the criteria of the study were chosen. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) a non-psychotic major depressive episode or bipolar II disorder and not having responded correctly to antidepressant medication to treat their mental disorder, which is why they had been suffering from symptoms of depression for several years.
In addition, these participants were evaluated with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, and must score at least 20 points, which indicates that they suffer from severe depression. On the other hand, They were given a drug test and the women also had to take a pregnancy testhaving to test negative in both tests to be able to participate in the study with the new therapy for depression.
Patients who had presented themselves to participate in the study and were excluded were excluded because they had a history of seizures, cardiac pacemakers or some type of neurological disorder, among others. There was also a participant who had been selected to participate in the study but on the first day of stimulation he had to leave after suffering high levels of anxiety, so the study concluded with 21 subjects, instead of 22, as planned. .
Methods for applying accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy
Before starting stimulation within the accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy, a pre-examination of the resting brain of all participants was performed through functional MRI and structural MRI.
They then proceeded with accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy which consisted of 10 sessions each day (1,800 pulses per session) lasting 5 consecutive days, so each patient received 90,000 pulses in total.
In addition, before and after the accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy, a series of evaluations were carried out on all participants to determine if they had suicidal ideas, using the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale, and about the status of their depression through the Depression Inventory. Beck and the Hamilton Depression Scale.
They also had to perform neurological tests to detect any neurological disturbances that the treatment could cause, through the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and a series of tests on executive functions by Delas Kaplan.
Results of its effectiveness
The most notable thing about this study is that 19 of the 22 participants met all the criteria for remission of depression, which represents an 86.4% success rate, since on the depression scale answered at the end of the treatment they showed a score less than 11 points. In addition, a reduction in suicidal ideation was discovered in these patients with persistent depression.
Furthermore, except for one patient who had to leave the first day due to anxiety symptoms, the rest did not suffer serious adverse effects and were able to complete all treatment sessions.
The only side effects that some of the treatment participants had reported were a feeling of fatigue, some discomfort in the facial muscles and a headache, but without being excessively bothersome. In addition, In the pneumological tests there were no negative effects after completing the treatment..
This study was also able to demonstrate that the spaced sessions (with 50 minutes of rest between each session in this case) produced an accumulation of progress, so that improvements were shown by the remission of clinical symptoms, so it is likely that the The duration of the intervals between each of the treatment sessions is an important factor to take into account when applying treatments of this type.
Conclusions
The results obtained through the study carried out with this innovative therapy for depression that have been detailed above have been very positive, which is encouraging for the future. However, it has been carried out with a very small sample, so there is still a long way to go and it has to be approved by the different federations and drug agencies in order to be administered more widely in hospitals around the world.
However, in this small sample Fewer side effects have been seen than in a treatment that has been approved by the North American drug regulatory body (FDA), which is “transcranial magnetic stimulation.” which is applied daily for a period of 6 weeks and offers a success rate of approximately 50%, so it would be interesting to see more studies on accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy to know if it is a better alternative than transcranial magnetic stimulation.
