Cracking the Code for Treating Depression: The Latest Breakthroughs.

A new study in Biological Psychiatry has advanced our understanding of the neural circuitry of depression in the human brain. Researchers collected electrophysiological recordings from prefrontal cortical regions in three human subjects, all of whom experienced severe treatment-resistant depression. They found that lower depression severity correlated with decreased low-frequency neural activity and increased high-frequency activity. They also found that changes in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) served as the best predictive area of depression severity. This information will be critical in designing and personalizing next-generation therapies for depression such as deep brain stimulation (DBS).