Clinical depression is a serious medical condition. The word “clinical” is added to separate people who are depressed from those who simply feel sad because of life events. People with clinical depression can feel very sad, hopeless, and unimportant. Often they are unable to live in a normal way. Some people who suffer from depression kill themselves.
Helen Mayberg is a researcher at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She says the first treatment for depression often fails.
“The problem is that whatever you get, the published numbers, even in randomized studies, is getting people well -- the remission rate is about 40 percent, which means, for most people, the first thing you are given is not likely to work.”
That means doctors must try different methods of treatments until they find one that is effective.
But technology may change that. Ms. Mayberg leads a team of researchers at Emory University. They used brain imaging technology called P.E.T., or positron emission tomography to study treatment effects. The study involved 63 depressed patients.
The researchers found that one area of the brain -- called the anterior insula -- seemed to predict which treatment would work.
Patients with a slow-working anterior insula did best with cognitive talk therapy. Patients with a very busy anterior insula reacted well to medication -- a drug called Lexapro.
“…where we do tests of various sorts to make management decisions all the time. Whereas in breast cancer, we do tumor markers in order to determine both that a treatment is likely to help you but also determine without a marker that certain treatments are not for you.”