Brainsway gets Israeli registration in Israel for deep-brain stimulation device to treat depression

Brainsway Ltd. wins Israeli Ministry of Health approval for its non-invasive deep-brain stimulation device, which uses transcranial magnetic stimulation to treat depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Brainsway Ltd.'s transcranial magnetic stimulation device won Israeli Ministry of Health approval to treat major depression, bipolar disorder and negative impairment in schizophrenia patients.

The approval clears Jerusalem-based Brainsway to sell the non-invasive TMS device, which delivers brief magnetic pulses to the brain, to four medical centers specializing in mental disorders.

"We are very pleased to receive this vote of confidence in the Deep TMS technology from our homeland's regulatory authority. We are now working to update indications with the Israeli Ministry of Health to bring them more in line with the approvals that we've already received in Europe," CEO Uzi Sofer said in prepared remarks.

BROADEN Study on DBS for Depression by St. Jude to be expanded

The FDA has allowed St. Jude to expand its BROADEN study to up to 20 study centers across the US with a total of 125 patients, the company has announced that they later request approval to further expand the study to a total of 231 patients. You nan read the press release of the company here.

10 Mental Health Conditions that Commonly Plague College Students

Not that we would propose DBS for all these conditions....

Really interesting data on the prevalence of mental disorders in college kids.

Portrayal of Psychiatric DBS in the popular press

An interesting piece titled Brain surgery saved my husband from the torment of depression on DBS for major depression in a patient in Oxford; read it here. This is an example of a rather carefully written article, not selling DBS as a miracle cure. The case has been published 2 years ago in J Neurosurg (PMID: 19284230).

Worthwhile reading.

Doctors push for brain surgery to treat depression

An interesting development from down under:

"Deep brain stimulation has been used to treat patients with Parkinson's disease for decades, but more recently it has been trialled on patients with severe depression and some brain surgeons want the procedure to be made more widely available."

Read it here.

Synaptic potentiation onto habenula neurons in the learned helplessness model of depression

This paper demonstrates that presynaptic action on neurons of the lateral habenula contribute to the learned helplessness model of depression in rodents, read it here.

Deep brain stimulation: Experts raise alarms about aggressive marketing

An article in the Harvard Health Blog discussing the Health Affairs paper and its write up in the New York Times. Read it here.