Brief, controlled bouts of oxygen deprivation – essentially moments of safe suffocation – can alleviate severe depression as effectively as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and ketamine, two of the most powerful treatments known to psychiatry, Chinese scientists have concluded.
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This radical new approach, called acute intermittent hypoxia, harnesses a natural mechanism triggered by a temporary drop in oxygen in the brain and activates a naturally occurring compound known as adenosine, which acts as a biochemical “master switch” that rapidly reverses depressive symptoms.
The research team has developed a prototype device and is now conducting clinical trials involving 30 patients in collaboration with Beijing Anding Hospital, a renowned psychiatric institute affiliated with Capital Medical University.
Their discovery may also solve one of psychiatry’s longest-standing mysteries: how established treatments such as ECT and ketamine affect the brain, as well as helping researchers develop alternative and safer treatments.
ECT, first used in the 1930s, involves passing electrical currents through the brain to induce a seizure and alleviate the symptoms of mental illness.
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Despite its effectiveness, it has been one of the most controversial treatments in psychiatry.
