Alan Oviatt | Emerging Technologies That Revolutionize Mental Health Treatment

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3 Emerging Technologies That Revolutionize Mental
Health Treatment
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Technologies That Revolutionize Mental Health
Treatment
From PTSD to depression, medical treatment of
mental illness has come a long way. The journey
from asylums and "hysteria" to modern SSRIs and
therapy has been one of the most eventful
journeys in the history of medicine. Still,
science continues to push the boundaries on
treatment. Thanks to the tremendous advancement in
technology, today there are numerous
tried-and-true methods to treat patients that
won't be perfected for decades. Technology,
including virtual reality, smart brain scans, and
magnetic fields have revolutionized the way of
treating mental illness.
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Virtual Reality
Virtual reality has something more than science
fiction and video games, said Alan Oviatt.
Stratospherically, the technology has improved
and its usage in todays immersive environments
has had psychologists involved specifically for
helping people with anxiety disorders, phobias,
and PTSD. VR advanced therapy a lot while
helping patients in cutting the costs of
treatment. With VR, a therapist doesn't need to
accompany a client on a trip to a crowded
shopping center. However, a lot of the potential
benefits depend on combining high-quality VR
named as "translational intervention," or the
process by which medical and scientific
discoveries are "translated" into real-world
applications. In other words, while virtual
reality is full of potential, the way it's
implemented in therapy could have drastic effects
on how effective it is.
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Virtual Reality
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Intelligent Brain Scans
With the improvement of modern psychiatric
medicine, people with mental health problems get
an advantage of determining what works for them
and which has the fewest side effects.
According to Alan Herbert Oviatt,
antidepressants can be considered as the best
example, incorporating numerous types - from
SSRIs to tricyclics. People with depression
should try different types on several dosages
before settling on one that creates stability. In
order to refine this process, it has been a
subject of a lot of research.
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Magnetic Fields
Alan Herbert Oviatt said, Brain stimulation
treatments for mental health benefit have been
the focus of science for a while. Scientists
discovered earlier that stimulating parts of the
brain directly using electrodes likely to aid
with treatment-resistant depression, for
instance. But what about minimal invasive that
could do the same thing? New technology from the
University of Buffalo might be the answer. The
researchers introduced a technique called
magneto-thermal stimulation that enables
"activate" very specific parts of the brain. The
process initiates via injecting magnetic
nanoparticles into specific parts of the brains
of live mice. Then subjected them to an
alternating magnetic field. In mice, the
researchers were able to stimulate areas to make
the animals run and turn around. The scientific
press has called it the "remote-controlled mice"
phenomenon, but that's not all this could be
helpful for. It's a big leap forward for people
who hope to one day be able to cure psychosis,
schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses
by manipulating specific neurons in the brain,
without damaging other parts.
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