mood regulation
Research Papers
Diagnostic and therapeutic utility of neuroimaging in depression: an overview
A growing number of studies have used neuroimaging to further our understanding of how brain structure and function are altered in major depression. More recently, these techniques have begun to show promise for the diagnosis and treatment of depression, both as aids to conventional methods and as methods in their own right. In this review, we describe recent neuroimaging findings in the field that might aid diagnosis and improve treatment accuracy. Overall, major depression is associated with numerous structural and functional differences in neural systems involved in emotion processing and mood regulation. Furthermore, several studies have shown that the structure and function of these systems is changed by pharmacological and psychological treatments of the condition and that these changes in candidate brain regions might predict clinical response. More recently, "machine learning" methods have used neuroimaging data to categorize individual patients according to their diagnostic status and predict treatment response. Despite being mostly limited to group-level comparisons at present, with the introduction of new methods and more naturalistic studies, neuroimaging has the potential to become part of the clinical armamentarium and may improve diagnostic accuracy and inform treatment choice at the patient level.
View Full Paper →QEEG Correlates of Auditory-Visual Entrainment Treatment Efficacy of Refractory Depression
Introduction. It is well established that the number of people diagnosed and suffering from depression is on the increase. Many of these patients are not responsive to first-line pharmacological intervention or simply cannot use medications for other reasons. As such, there has been a growing need for nonmedication approaches to treatment. The purpose of this study was to examine the use of auditory-visual EEG entrainment (AVE) at a 14 Hz (beta) frequency to decrease symptoms of depression with corresponding changes in neurophysiology. Method. Sixteen participants ranged in age from 20 to 67 years and were screened utilizing the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and broken into two groups of 8 (simulated, AVE treatment groups), with a cross-over design. Both groups were given the BDI-II and QEEG testing at baseline, 4 weeks following either AVE or simulated treatment, and then again after an additional 4 weeks and a switch in treatment in the cross-over design. Results. Results revealed significant reduction of depression only after the 4 weeks on AVE therapy of the BDI-II scores (p > .01). QEEG scores adjusted for normal age deviations demonstrate significant EEG change scores over time in cortical regions associated with mood regulation. Conclusion. The findings indicate that AVE therapy may be aviable nonmedication therapeutic intervention.
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