Sam Brusco, Associate Editor03.03.22
An estimated 21 million adults in the United States have undergone at least one episode of major depression in their lives. This is slightly more than 8 percent of all American adults. Major depression is characterized by mood changes, along with cognitive and physical symptoms.
A collaborative, three-year study is underway to assess new ways to treat or prevent major depression, accelerate effective treatments, and build predictive models to identify treatments that might work best for individual patients. Participating in this study are researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Stanford Medicine.
This specific contract is part of a $50 million initiative by Wellcome Leap, a U.S.-based non-profit founded by the Wellcome Trust to speed up global health breakthroughs. Wellcome Leap is built on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency model of innovation—funding novel and unconventional projects targeting complex human health challenges.
The contract supports a program titled, “Multi-Channel Psych: Revealing Mechanisms of Anhedonia.” Anhedonia is the inability to feel pleasure and is a common symptom of depression and other mental health disorders.
“Depression is not a singular condition, and there is no singular remedy,” Zafiris “Jeff” Daskalakis, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine, who will co-lead the program with Conor Liston, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine and Nolan Williams, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine, told the press. “It is an extraordinarily complex disease that, in many ways, is not yet well-understood. It is a different disease in every person, and every person requires a personalized therapeutic strategy.”
Depression is most often treated using psychotherapy with drugs that target specific brain mechanisms like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). For many depression patients, these strategies are an effective first step and work effectively, but drug therapies don’t work in about one-third of patients.
The research collaborative will examine current and new applications of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS is a non-invasive procedure that applies a series of short magnetic pulses to stimulate nerve cells in areas of the brain known to be associated with major depression. UC San Diego was the first TMS provider in San Diego for those with treatment-resistant depression and runs the largest TMS clinic in the region.
“TMS requires patients to come to the clinic daily, and medications do not,” said Liston. “So for many people, medications are a good first treatment to try, but TMS is a great option for people who do not respond to medications.”
During the three-year study, patients will receive various treatments at three sites, including a combination of the antidepressant escitalopram (known by brand name Lexapro) and different types of TMS. Patients will be evaluated via clinical assessments and brain scans in order to develop algorithms that can match patients with personalized treatment plans.
TMS technology made a leap last year with a number of landmark approvals. In November, Magstim received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance for its Horizon 3.0 TMS system. The latest generation of the system adds new layers of quality control analytics and workflow improvements to the first FDA-cleared TMS navigation system designed for the clinical setting. Magstim developed the first TMS system over 30 years ago, and there have been nearly 16,000 published studies citing use of Magstim stimulators in neuroscientific and clinical research.
“We spoke with physicians, patients, researchers and employees and asked them to imagine the next generation of TMS technology,” Lothar Krinke, Ph.D., CEO of Magstim, told the press. “How can we improve patient care efficacy and efficiencies? Horizon 3.0 is the culmination of Magstim’s foundation in science, technology, and our passion to improve patient outcomes.”
A month prior, Nexstim launched its new navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) system in the U.S. The NBS5+ system features navigated brain therapy software to deliver diagnostic and therapeutic applications in the same system. It’s also FDA-cleared and CE marked to treat major depressive disorder (MDD). The combined option aims to increase multi-departmental utilization of systems and facilitate future new therapeutic indications for mental health and neurological conditions.
“We are happy to see that more and more of our customers seek to use the Nexstim systems in both diagnostic and therapeutic applications,” Nexstim CEO Mikko Karvinen explained. “This has already been possible in the European markets where the new NBS System deliveries to the hospitals enable neurosurgical diagnostics as well as MDD and pain therapy with the Nexstim system.”
Noninvasive neurostimulation treatment firm BrainsWay also earned expanded FDA clearance last August for its Deep TMS system to reduce comorbid anxiety systems in adult patients with depression, which is also known as anxious depression.
“This clearance is confirmation of what many have believed anecdotally for years—that Deep TMS is a unique form of therapy that can address comorbid anxiety symptoms using the same depression treatment protocol,” Aron Tendler, M.D., chief medical officer of BrainsWay, told the press.
A collaborative, three-year study is underway to assess new ways to treat or prevent major depression, accelerate effective treatments, and build predictive models to identify treatments that might work best for individual patients. Participating in this study are researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Stanford Medicine.
This specific contract is part of a $50 million initiative by Wellcome Leap, a U.S.-based non-profit founded by the Wellcome Trust to speed up global health breakthroughs. Wellcome Leap is built on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency model of innovation—funding novel and unconventional projects targeting complex human health challenges.
The contract supports a program titled, “Multi-Channel Psych: Revealing Mechanisms of Anhedonia.” Anhedonia is the inability to feel pleasure and is a common symptom of depression and other mental health disorders.
“Depression is not a singular condition, and there is no singular remedy,” Zafiris “Jeff” Daskalakis, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine, who will co-lead the program with Conor Liston, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine and Nolan Williams, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine, told the press. “It is an extraordinarily complex disease that, in many ways, is not yet well-understood. It is a different disease in every person, and every person requires a personalized therapeutic strategy.”
Depression is most often treated using psychotherapy with drugs that target specific brain mechanisms like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). For many depression patients, these strategies are an effective first step and work effectively, but drug therapies don’t work in about one-third of patients.
The research collaborative will examine current and new applications of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS is a non-invasive procedure that applies a series of short magnetic pulses to stimulate nerve cells in areas of the brain known to be associated with major depression. UC San Diego was the first TMS provider in San Diego for those with treatment-resistant depression and runs the largest TMS clinic in the region.
“TMS requires patients to come to the clinic daily, and medications do not,” said Liston. “So for many people, medications are a good first treatment to try, but TMS is a great option for people who do not respond to medications.”
During the three-year study, patients will receive various treatments at three sites, including a combination of the antidepressant escitalopram (known by brand name Lexapro) and different types of TMS. Patients will be evaluated via clinical assessments and brain scans in order to develop algorithms that can match patients with personalized treatment plans.
TMS technology made a leap last year with a number of landmark approvals. In November, Magstim received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance for its Horizon 3.0 TMS system. The latest generation of the system adds new layers of quality control analytics and workflow improvements to the first FDA-cleared TMS navigation system designed for the clinical setting. Magstim developed the first TMS system over 30 years ago, and there have been nearly 16,000 published studies citing use of Magstim stimulators in neuroscientific and clinical research.
“We spoke with physicians, patients, researchers and employees and asked them to imagine the next generation of TMS technology,” Lothar Krinke, Ph.D., CEO of Magstim, told the press. “How can we improve patient care efficacy and efficiencies? Horizon 3.0 is the culmination of Magstim’s foundation in science, technology, and our passion to improve patient outcomes.”
A month prior, Nexstim launched its new navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) system in the U.S. The NBS5+ system features navigated brain therapy software to deliver diagnostic and therapeutic applications in the same system. It’s also FDA-cleared and CE marked to treat major depressive disorder (MDD). The combined option aims to increase multi-departmental utilization of systems and facilitate future new therapeutic indications for mental health and neurological conditions.
“We are happy to see that more and more of our customers seek to use the Nexstim systems in both diagnostic and therapeutic applications,” Nexstim CEO Mikko Karvinen explained. “This has already been possible in the European markets where the new NBS System deliveries to the hospitals enable neurosurgical diagnostics as well as MDD and pain therapy with the Nexstim system.”
Noninvasive neurostimulation treatment firm BrainsWay also earned expanded FDA clearance last August for its Deep TMS system to reduce comorbid anxiety systems in adult patients with depression, which is also known as anxious depression.
“This clearance is confirmation of what many have believed anecdotally for years—that Deep TMS is a unique form of therapy that can address comorbid anxiety symptoms using the same depression treatment protocol,” Aron Tendler, M.D., chief medical officer of BrainsWay, told the press.
