Researchers boost human mental function with brain stimulation
Study indicates this method could be a new approach to treating a variety
of severe mental illnesses

Date:
November 1, 2021
Source:
University of Minnesota Medical School
Summary:
Researchers show it is possible to improve specific human brain
functions related to self-control and mental flexibility by merging
artificial intelligence with targeted electrical brain stimulation.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
In a pilot human study, researchers from the University of Minnesota
Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital show it is possible
to improve specific human brain functions related to self-control and
mental flexibility by merging artificial intelligence with targeted
electrical brain stimulation.


==========================================================================
Alik Widge, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry and member of
the Medical Discovery Team on Addiction at the U of M Medical School,
is the senior author of the research published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. The findings come from a human study conducted at
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston among 12 patients undergoing
brain surgery for epilepsy -- a procedure that places hundreds of tiny electrodes throughout the brain to record its activity and identify
where seizures originate.

In this study, Widge collaborated with Massachusetts General Hospital's
Sydney Cash, MD, PhD, an expert in epilepsy research; and Darin Dougherty,
MD, an expert in clinical brain stimulation. Together, they identified a
brain region -- the internal capsule -- that improved patients' mental
function when stimulated with small amounts of electrical energy. That
part of the brain is responsible for cognitive control -- the process
of shifting from one thought pattern or behavior to another, which is
impaired in most mental illnesses.

"An example might include a person with depression who just can't get
out of a 'stuck' negative thought. Because it is so central to mental
illness, finding a way to improve it could be a powerful new way to
treat those illnesses," Widge said.

The team developed algorithms, so that after stimulation, they could
track patients' cognitive control abilities, both from their actions and directly from their brain activity. The controller method provided boosts
of stimulation whenever the patients were doing worse on a laboratory
test of cognitive control.

"This system can read brain activity, 'decode' from that when a patient is having difficulty, and apply a small burst of electrical stimulation to
the brain to boost them past that difficulty," Widge said. "The analogy
I often use is an electric bike. When someone's pedaling but having
difficulty, the bike senses it and augments it. We've made the equivalent
of that for human mental function." The study is the first to show that:
* A specific human mental function linked to mental illness can
be reliably
enhanced using precisely targeted electrical stimulation;
* There are specific sub-parts of the internal capsule brain
structure that
are particularly effective for cognitive enhancement; and
* A closed-loop algorithm used as a controller was twice as effective
than
stimulating at random times.

Some of the patients had significant anxiety in addition to their
epilepsy.

When given the cognitive-enhancing stimulation, they reported that their anxiety got better, because they were more able to shift their thoughts
away from their distress and focus on what they wanted. Widge says that
this suggests this method could be used to treat patients with severe
and medication-resistant anxiety, depression or other disorders.

"This could be a totally new approach in treating mental illness. Instead
of trying to suppress symptoms, we could give patients a tool that lets
them take control of their own minds," Widge said. "We could put them
back in the driver's seat and let them feel a new sense of agency."
The research team is now preparing for clinical trials. Because the
target for improving cognitive control is already approved by the Food
and Drug Administration for deep brain stimulation, Widge says this
research can be done with existing tools and devices -- once a trial is formally approved -- and the translation of this care to current medical practice could be rapid.

"The wonderful thing about these findings is that we are now in a position
to conduct clinical trials to further demonstrate effectiveness and
then hopefully move to helping treatment-resistant patients who are in desperate need for additional interventions to treat their illnesses," Dougherty said.

This work was supported by grants from the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under Cooperative Agreement Number W911NF-14-2-0045 issued by the Army Research Organization (ARO)
contracting office in support of DARPA's SUBNETS Program, the National Institutes of Health, Ellison Foundation, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation,
MGH Executive Council on Research, OneMind Institute and the MnDRIVE
and Medical Discovery Team on Addiction initiatives at the University
of Minnesota Medical School.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_Minnesota_Medical_School. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ishita Basu, Ali Yousefi, Britni Crocker, Rina Zelmann, Angelique C.

Paulk, Noam Peled, Kristen K. Ellard, Daniel S. Weisholtz, G. Rees
Cosgrove, Thilo Deckersbach, Uri T. Eden, Emad N. Eskandar, Darin D.

Dougherty, Sydney S. Cash, Alik S. Widge. Closed-loop enhancement
and neural decoding of cognitive control in humans. Nature
Biomedical Engineering, 2021; DOI: 10.1038/s41551-021-00804-y ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211101141757.htm

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