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Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

med.stanford.edu

191–200 of 215 posts

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#191

Unfortunately, TMS is extremely expensive and not likely to be covered by most insurance plans. Even with a decent PPO, I was quoted about $1k a treatment and they said I needed at minimum 30 treatments.

Still, it is an FDA approved treatment, so for other readers suffering from depression, it's worth seeing if your insurance covers it. For me, it was covered, and worth it.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#192
Tangential but to anyone who is tired and anxious I recommend also checking for Tetany[0]. I got diagnosed with that and just supplementing minerals had positive effect on my wellbeeing. Before I was miss?diagnosed with mild depression and put on SSRI(which helps) but my muscles got so tense recently that I went for dry needling and they recommended I check for Tetany. BTW seems like predisposition to this might be genetic as my mother has similar issues.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetany

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#193
post #183
post #60

Don't know who needs to hear this. I started a food diary after an elimination diet which restored my energy levels. I don't know the reasons, but you're looking in a time window of four-seven days. When I stray from my diet (meat and water) one day. I become mentally unstable after 4 days. It says for 3 day, then gets good again. Crying for no reason, ruminating, poor sleep, strong sour smell that can't seem to be r…

Interesting. A real life example of latency and half-life[1]. [1] https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2023/04/25/n1-latency-and-half...

thanks! I needed this, I guess!

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#194
post #60

Don't know who needs to hear this. I started a food diary after an elimination diet which restored my energy levels. I don't know the reasons, but you're looking in a time window of four-seven days. When I stray from my diet (meat and water) one day. I become mentally unstable after 4 days. It says for 3 day, then gets good again. Crying for no reason, ruminating, poor sleep, strong sour smell that can't seem to be r…

Have you done blood PH level test?

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#195

I have had what seems to me to be depression for most of my life (40+ years). I have been fortunate enough to have a kid and, now, I guess I just don't have time to be depressed or something because most of my thoughts of ending life etc have, quite thankfully, gone away. I'm really not trying to be off-putting when I say this but I do sometimes wonder if some instances of depression aren't simply a cause of people n…

> really I think having kids gets looked down on It does? As someone who has decided not to have children, I feel very much like I’m the outcast. Particularly in the southern US. Also, here on HN where there are a shocking number of parents compared to say, Reddit.

Of course it doesn't get looked down upon, that's absurd. The most socially unacceptable thing for a woman to do is not have kids.

Something like 85% of people over 40 have children - it's literally what the vast majority of people do.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#196

My son, who is diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety, depression, and OCD, and who has been in talk therapy, on SSRIs, and other interventions for years, recently started LENS therapy, also called neurofeedback. (I'm on mobile device, otherwise I'd find the link.) It sounds a lot like a form of TMS. He's had something like 7 sessions, each lasting maybe 15 minutes. The results are nothing short of astounding for our family. H…

Look into EPA fish oils for depression

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#197
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> really I think having kids gets looked down on It does? As someone who has decided not to have children, I feel very much like I’m the outcast. Particularly in the southern US. Also, here on HN where there are a shocking number of parents compared to say, Reddit.

Of course it doesn't get looked down upon, that's absurd. The most socially unacceptable thing for a woman to do is not have kids. Something like 85% of people over 40 have children - it's literally what the vast majority of people do.

Not sure about that. It gets looked down on in some subgroups. I've seen it here: "You shouldn't have kids because global warming". The more you are exposed to those subgroups, the more you perceive that it's looked down on, because the more you hear it being looked down on.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#198

disclaimer: I acknowledge depression as an illness and state of being. that being said, if you take someone who is objectively "not depressed" and apply these same depression treatments, what would happen? some state of euphoria? heightened mood? happiness? suppose that new state is now the normal state in which people are judged against. now, the before-mentioned person who was not depressed, may be considered depre…

This line of reasoning reminds me of a common misunderstanding of depression I've seen from people who've never been clinically depressed (1). It's an understandable mistake, albeit potentially dangerous (2). Depression isn't on the happiness-sadness scale. It's quite tangential to that. In fact, perhaps quizzically, you can be happy and depressed. It's fairly common for people who learn about the loss of a loved one…

You can experience depression as being chronically super sad

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not even having kids, but being engaged in something fully. From neuroscience, there's the default mode network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network > It is best known for being active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. Apparently, activation of the DMN is correlated to rumination, itself correlated to…

Might also be the additional social interaction (the kid is a human, even if a small one). I think many people felt this during the pandemic and its lockdowns.

I know some people that got dogs (and kept them thankfully). Having someone in your life who's consistently happy to be in your presence is a pretty good antidepressant.

Re: Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way

#200

> “It’s almost as if you’d already decided how you were going to feel, and then everything you were sensing was filtered through that,” he said. “The mood has become primary.” This is 1000% what depression feels like, once you've properly come to terms with it. Your brain seems absolutely compelled to apply the most horrific, negative interpretation to everything that happens to you. Even when you understand it's wro…

Anxiety feels similarly. The most valuable thing I've gotten from the past several years of therapy is a better model for how humans actually process information. The simple model a lot of people have is: 1. Receive some stimulus, input, or experience. 2. Process and understand it. 3. Respond to that emotionally. What we actually do is more like: 1. Receive some stimulus, input, or experience. 2. This data is way too…

It's incredible to me how little insight our conscious selves have into what's going on in our subconscious. It seems like almost all the cognitive hard work goes on in the back end systems and the front end we usually think of as being 'us' is just a thin veneer of awareness. Like a user interface between our unconscious selves and the rest of the world.

So when I'm speaking the words just come out. I've got a vague sense of where I'm going and the point I'm about to make, but it's certainly not verbal at that stage. My wife has afantasia, which is not a condition or anything as such, it just means she has no inner monologue and hears no inner voice when e.g. reading a book. Conversely one of my daughters says she is consciously aware of what she is about to say in words several seconds in advance even while speaking rapidly. My mother is an amateur artist and says she has crystal clear visual imagination and photographic memory.

There seems to be a significant variation in how our conscious and cognitive processes work between individuals, including some having varying levels of access to cognitive mechanisms that in others are completely subconscious.

That's just one example of very significant differences between individuals in one family, even in direct lines of descent, so this doesn't seem to be entirely genetic. It leads me to suspect that there may we be similarly very significant variations in how all sorts of other cognitive functions operate between individuals.

I'm sure there's an overall architecture to our brains and neurological machinery. Various brain areas are clearly specialised into particular cognitive functions, but it may well be that, within those areas, how our brains get to implement those functions might have quite a bit of variation.

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