Over the course of a lifetime, as many as one in five people will experience depression. For many, psychotherapy or first-line antidepressants are highly effective and allow people to get back on their feet in a few weeks or months. Yet others try treatment after treatment, struggling for years before they find something that alleviates their symptoms. Researchers have long clashed over precise efficacy rates, especially since we all respond differently to drugs and therapy. After all, the brain is our most mysterious organ — and it’s not always easy to discern what’s going on inside our skulls.
But a solution may be in the works: Scientists think that by carefully studying the brains of people with depression, they could eventually predict which treatments could work for specific patients, therefore eliminating months or years of frustrating trial-and-error. Although this research is still in its early stages, labs have already identified patterns of brain activity that seem to be associated with responses to certain antidepressant medications, cognitive behavioral therapy, and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, a treatment that involves stimulating specific regions of the brain with a series of short magnetic pulses.
