Mental health: “We will be able to intervene in a patient’s brain in the same way that we intervene in the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys”

The use of brain stimulation techniques to treat mental illness is increasingly attracting interest from the scientific and medical community. According to several international studies, around two-thirds of patients who undergo deep brain stimulation — a technique that involves the implantation of electrodes in deep regions of the brain, connected to a device placed on the patient’s chest — “achieve a complete remission of symptoms, greatly improving their quality of life.”

The results achieved in Portugal are even “slightly better”, explains Joana Andrade, psychiatrist at the Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, where she coordinates and sub-coordinates, respectively, the Electroconvulsive Therapy Unit and the Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Unit. She is one of the guests at the 1st Portuguese Conference on Brain Stimulation in Mental Health, which takes place this Wednesday and precedes the sixth international conference on the topic, which takes place on the 11th and 12th of April, also at the Champalimaud Foundation, in Lisbon.