December 05, 2018

Good Morning,

Wanna improve your mood? A scientific study says that delivering electrical currents to specific regions of the brain can improve one's mood. I gotta think about this...

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Study: Electric stimulation therapy boosts mood, decreases depression --*

Scientists can improve the mood of people with depression by delivering electrical currents directly to affected regions of the brain, a new study says.

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco on Thursday published a study in the journal Current Biology showing that small electrical pulses sent through the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, or OFC, region of the brain can help relieve depression brought on by epileptic seizures.

"The OFC has been called one of the least understood regions in the brain, but it is richly connected to various brain structures linked to mood, depression and decision making, making it very well positioned to coordinate activity between emotion and cognition," Eddie Chang, study senior author and a professor of neurosurgery at UCSF, said in a press release.

Researchers at UCSF targeted the OFC because they believe this area houses the brain's mood-regulating wiring. After receiving only three minutes of electric charges to the OFC region, patients with moderate to severe depression noticed significant improvement.

"Patients said things like 'Wow, I feel better,' 'I feel less anxious,' 'I feel calm, cool and collected,'" said Kristin Sellers, a post-doctoral scholar at UCSF and a co-author on the study. "And just anecdotally, you could see the improvements in patients' body language. They smiled, they sat up straighter, they started to speak more quickly and naturally."

Now the team is looking to develop a self-guided device that can recognize a dip in a patient with a mood disorder and stimulate the OFC in a patient when needed.

"Ultimately, it would be ideal if activity in mood-related brain circuits could be normalized indefinitely without patients needing to do anything," Vikram Rao, study co-author and researcher at UCSF, said in a press release.

* Artificial light could bring on insomnia in older adults *

Brightness from outdoor light sources at night is causing insomnia among older adults, a study says.

The study findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, showed that "light pollution," or inappropriate or excessive use of artificial, outdoor light at night, can create an unusual and unhealthy effect on humans.

"This study observed a significant association between the intensity of outdoor, artificial, nighttime lighting and the prevalence of insomnia as indicated by hypnotic agent prescriptions for older adults in South Korea," said Kyoung-bok Min, an associate professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Seoul National University College of Medicine, said in a press release.

Researchers pulled information from the National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort in South Korea between 2002 and 2013 for adults age 60 and older. About 60 percent of participants were women.

Approximately 22 percent of people in the study received prescriptions for hypnotic drugs zolpidem and triazolam, according to the study.

Insomnia at night can disrupt circadian rhythms, which can lead to cancer, diabetes, obesity and depression.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine describes insomnia as the struggle to fall asleep, maintain sleep or waking up too early.

"Given the recent scientific evidence including our results, bright outdoor lighting may be a novel risk factor for prescribing hypnotic drugs," Min said.


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