While drugs to treat depression have proven effective for millions of individuals there are a significant number of patients who are not responsive to antidepressants. Treatment resistant depression, or refractory depression, is a condition that affects an estimated 4 million people in the U.S. and 11 million worldwide. Until recently, there were no options for these individuals beyond treatment with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which commonly induces memory loss among other issues. Today, several neurodevice approaches for the treatment of refractory depression are emerging including Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS), Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) and repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS)…
