Neuroscientists Have Created a Mood Decoder That Can Measure Depression

An anonymous reader shares a report: Deep brain stimulation is already used to treat severe cases of epilepsy and a few movement disorders such as Parkinson's. But depression is more complicated -- partly because we still don't fully understand what's going on in the brain when it occurs. "Depression is a complex illness," says Patricio Riva Posse, a neurologist at the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, who was not involved in the trial. "It's not like trying to correct one tremor -- there's a whole universe of symptoms." These include low mood, suicidality, inability to experience pleasure, and changes in motivation, sleep, and appetite. Doctors have been using electricity to treat brain disorders -- including depression -- for decades, and some studies have found that electrodes placed deep inside the brain can jolt some people out of their symptoms. But results vary. Neuroscientists hope that by getting a better idea of what's happening inside the brains of people with symptoms like John's, they can make the treatment more effective. John is one of five people who have volunteered to have their brains probed as part of a clinical trial. At the start of 2020, he had a total of 14 electrodes implanted across his brain. For nine days, he stayed in a hospital with protruding cables wrapped around his head, while neuroscientists monitored how his brain activity correlated with his mood. The researchers behind the trial say they have developed a "mood decoder" -- a way of being able to work out how someone is feeling just by looking at brain activity. Using the decoder, the scientists hope to be able to measure how severe a person's depression is, and target more precisely where the electrodes are placed to optimize the effect on the patient's mood. So far, they have analyzed the results of three volunteers. What they have found is extremely promising, says Sameer Sheth, a neurosurgeon based at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who is leading the trial. Not only have he and his colleagues been able to link volunteers' specific brain activity with their mood, but they have also found a way to stimulate a positive mood. "This is the first demonstration of successful and consistent mood decoding of humans in these brain regions," says Sheth. His colleague Jiayang Xiao presented the findings at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in San Diego in November.

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