This month the AMC, Amsterdam Medical Centre teaching hospital, will begin performing brain surgery on hopelessly depressed patients. A kind of pacemaker for the brain will be implanted. The technique is meant solely as a last resort for those who cannot be helped otherwise. Medication and even electroshock must first have proven to be ineffective.
This method, called DBS, Deep Brain Stimulation, has first been used for curing depression in Canada and the US. It's a very recent development and only twenty patients have now been operated on. In Europe the AMC is the first hospital to make the technique available to the morbidly depressed.
Because these patients show an alarming suicide rate, there is no ethical dilemma about the concept of brain surgery for treating a mental affliction. Medical ethics specialist Dr Theo A. Boer of the Christian University of Kampen says: "I see no reason not to use this treatment".
And the chairman of the Dutch Patients Association, Ruth Seldenrijk, puts it like this: "We think this method is a welcome tool for treating those poor patients who are left out in the cold by present day psychiatry."
Deep within the brain two tiny electrodes will be implanted, which continuously apply a very weak electrical current to a very specific, small part of the brain. This brain area, known as 'C25', deals with 'enjoyment', 'addiction' and also depression.
Although DBS sounds like pure science fiction, it has been used for decades to control the tremors of Parkinson patients. A common side effect observed in such patients has been a marked mood improvement. This is why DBS is now considered an option for curing severe depression, and the success rate so far is close to 60 percent.
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