Vita gazette – The days are coming when we will say goodbye to depression, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Scientists continue working to improve the quality of life, this time implanting a chip in the human brain to treat depression.

Scientists implanted electrodes into the skull of a patient in order to treat their depression, with the hope that their condition might be eased by short and small electric pulses into the brain.  

In September, the doctors in St Louis shaved off some bits of the patient’s skull in order include to electrodes  into it. The surgery was performed by start-up Inner Cosmos, just one of several companies working on technology that can be implanted into the brains of patients.

This trial was the first of its kind to use implants directly into the skull to treat depression, and could herald in a new age of science treating mental health issues with hardware rather than more traditional methods such as psychiatry and psychology.

The Inner Cosmos hardware is about the size of a penny and works by sending a pulse through the patient’s left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, measuring neuronal activity to determine the correct amount of stimulation as it goes.

That happens for about 15 minutes once every day. This first trial is expected to last for around a year, with the potential for a few more patients to be involved. Then, another trial is set to begin next month.

There is some debate about which part of the brain is best to stimulate in order to achieve the desired results, but this Inner Cosmos technique targets an area that is also targeted by another method called transcranial magnetic stimulation. It’s still very early days, but technology is advancing rapidly.

This first device is a bit larger than Inner Cosmos intends its final product to be in time, but it’s only the first one.

The idea isn’t exactly a new one, given that similar techniques have been used for years to treat epilepsy and Parkinson’s, but treating depression in this way is a pretty fresh idea.

We’ll have to see how things develop from here, but it’s definitely a fascinating start.

Elon Musk: The brain implant will start in six months.

Elon Musk expects human trials for Neuralink brain implant will start in six months. Musk’s brain chip project ‘Neuralink’ was recently tested on a monkey. A 9-year-old monkey named Pager played a video game with the power of thought within the scope of the test. Musk argues that in the future, paralyzed patients will be able to move their muscles and walk with the power of thought, thanks to the brain chip.

The billionaire entrepreneur has repeatedly stated that with the technology in question, diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s can also be treated.

The company Neuralink, which Musk launched in 2016, aims to develop brain-machine interfaces with very high bandwidth. Accordingly, a battery-powered chip will be placed in the skull to send electrodes to the brain.