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Depression, PTSD, Concussion and Autism Treatment using MeRT and TMS

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How Childhood Trauma can Affect the Brain

Dr. Mark Liker, located in the Greater Los Angeles Area, Can Help You Overcome the Effects of Childhood Trauma

Childhood trauma is all too common these days. Approximately 14% of Americans report that they experienced emotional abuse or neglect during their childhood. And that trauma can also cause permanent changes to the structure of the brain.

A recent article in The Irish Times went into detail about brain health and adverse childhood experiences:

“Psychological studies have shown… that traumatic experiences in childhood have the potential to alter a child’s brain through the narrowing of neural pathways which may cause longer-term effects in areas such as attachment issues, physical health, emotional regulation, dissociation cognitive abilities, self-concept and behavioural [sic] control. Brain development in infancy and early childhood lays the foundation for all future development.”

It is important to note that extended periods of trauma in childhood can increase the chances of:

  • anxiety disorders
  • bipolar disorder
  • major depression
  • personality disorders
  • PTSD
  • psychosis

As another example, a study used an MRI to measure changes in brain structure among young adults who had experienced childhood trauma. As a result of their testing, they discovered differences in nine brain regions between those who had experienced childhood abuse and neglect and those who had not.

It’s probably not surprising to you that trauma in childhood affects people later in life. However, the manner in which this trauma alters the brain is important to understand. After all, the more we know the areas of the brain affected, the more we can treat those areas and lessen the effects in adults.

Call Our New Patient Coordinator to Learn More

CALL:(310) 895-7122

Three Levels of Childhood Stress

childhood traumaEvery child experiences stress. After all, stress is a part of life, and an important way to learn how to handle situations and increase resilience. However, there are different levels of stress, each of which has a different impact on the brain.

Positive Stress is a moderate type of stress, which only lasts for a short time and is a normal part of life. Examples of this type of stress may include being left in daycare for the first time or visiting the doctor. Learning to adjust to positive stress is vital for healthy childhood development.

Tolerable Stress can be more serious, such as the death of a loved one or a natural disaster. This type of stress can potentially cause damage to the brain but occurs infrequently enough to give the brain time to heal.

Toxic Stress is another matter entirely. This occurs when the stress is strong, frequent, and prolonged, such as abuse, neglect, or violence. This toxic stress disrupts normal brain development and can rewire certain parts of the brain.

Areas of the Brain Affected by Childhood Trauma

How Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation TMS Works to Improve Brain FunctionThe US Department of Health and Human Services laid out five different areas which may be affected by childhood stress and trauma:

  • Reduced size of the hippocampus, the area central to learning and memory.
  • Decrease in volume of the corpus callosum, responsible for communication between brain hemispheres and specifically, integrating motor, sensory, and cognitive performance.
  • Reduction in size of the cerebellum, affecting motor skills and coordination.
  • Smaller prefrontal cortex, which is critical for behavior, emotional and social regulation, and perception.
  • Overactivity in the amygdala, the area responsible for processing emotions and determining whether something is potentially dangerous.

As we have noted above, these impacts on the brain will affect how a child responds to life. Moreover, adults who have experienced this type of childhood neglect and abuse are far more likely to deal with depression, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, and more.

Recovering from this type of trauma and its long-term effects on the brain can be an arduous process, particularly when trying to figure out which forms of therapy will work. However, with the proper treatment, including therapies like MeRT, there is hope.

In essence, MeRT focuses on balancing brainwave activity to ease symptoms. We do this by performing a qEEG (brain mapping) to identify the imbalance. Then, we strengthen the brainwave activity through a highly personalized treatment plan using TMS.

 

Would you like a consultation with our New Patient Coordinator?

If you’ve been experiencing the adverse effects of childhood trauma, then we want to help. And it costs nothing to call us and talk about what is happening.

During your call, the New Patient Coordinator will listen to you and answer your questions. She will also explain our process and protocols, as well as costs, possible insurance benefits, and any other details you want to know.

There are no obligations and she will take all the time you need in order to determine whether you should take the next steps.

Call Our New Patient Coordinator to Learn More

CALL:(310) 895-7122

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Pandemic-related depression rates continue to rise. Here’s what you can do.

We’re well into our third year of a global pandemic, and if you feel depressed, wondering when and if you’ll see an end to all this upheaval, you’re not alone. And even if you’re moving through this pandemic with your mental health relatively intact, just watching the news can bring on feelings of anxiety and depression.

So, it won’t surprise you that mental health conditions are on the rise: Depression among adults in the United States tripled in the early months of the COVID pandemic. And new research shows that this only increased in 2021, with depression affecting one in every three American adults.

Just some of what may be contributing to these mental health issues are:

  • Uncertainty about the future
  • Financial pressures
  • Altered daily routines
  • Information overload
  • Rumors and misinformation
  • Fear of getting sick or dying
  • Social isolation
  • Anger and divisiveness in the country and the world
  • Grief over the loss of loved ones
  • Mental health issues after recovering from COVID

A June 2020 study by the CDC reported on the results of a survey done on over 5,400 US adults:

  • 40% said they were struggling with mental health or substance use
  • 31% reported symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder
  • 26% had trauma/stressor-related disorder symptoms
  • 13% said that they had started or increased substance use
  • 11% reported that they had seriously considered suicide

We are now almost two years past that study, and the mental health toll is only getting worse. In fact, suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S. and has been on the rise for teens and adults. The most recent statistics show that 8.9 percent of youth in grades 9-12 reported that they had made at least one suicide attempt in the past 12 months.

If you are feeling suicidal, please call 911. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255). Additionally, we have listed some resources at the end of this article that may help.

How to Take Care of Your Mental Health

depressionFortunately, there seems to be a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, as cities and countries are easing restrictions and infection rates drop. However, with all that’s going on, we see very little emphasis placed on our mental health. Here at BrainStim Centers, we care about your mental health. And we want to help you heal.

It begins with doing whatever you can to reduce the stress in your life. While you may not be able to control what’s happening in the world around you, you can do your best to take care of yourself and your mental health.

Here are some healthy ways the CDC recommends for coping with pandemic-related stress and anxiety:

  • Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to the news. Try limiting it to a couple of times a day.
  • Take care of your body by eating healthy, exercising, and getting plenty of sleep.
  • Breathe — take deep breaths, stretch, or meditate.
  • Avoid consuming too much alcohol, tobacco, or other substances.
  • Know what to do if you are sick and are concerned about COVID-19, and contact your healthcare professional.
  • Have information on hand about any other support services, such as counseling or therapy.
  • Make time to unwind and do some other activities you enjoy.
  • Talk with people you trust about how you’re feeling. It helps to connect with others.
  • Become more involved with your community or faith-based organizations.

How We Can Help You: MeRT Treatment for Depression

While you do everything you can to ease the stress from this pandemic, sometimes the depression can still be overwhelming. And perhaps you haven’t responded to medications or other treatments as well as you’d hoped.

Depression is often initially treated with antidepressants, psychotherapy, or in many cases both, but sometimes these treatments don’t work fully on everyone. And sometimes people don’t tolerate the side effects well.

We have another option for treatment. It’s called MeRT, or Magnetic e-Resonance Therapy. MeRT is a long-lasting treatment for depression that is non-pharmaceutical and non-invasive, and MeRT is FDA-approved for the treatment of Depression and Major Depressive Disorder.

MeRT is a highly personalized treatment that focuses on balancing your brainwave activity to ease symptoms of depression. Patients who are clinically depressed have markers that we can see in their EEG studies, so the first step of MeRT is performing a qEEG, or brain map, to clearly locate those markers. Once we identify the imbalance, we can strengthen the brainwave activity through a highly personalized treatment plan using TMS.

Treatment for depression with MeRT has proven highly successful in permanently relieving patients of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and more.

Learn more about our proven treatments for depression here.

Additional Mental Health Resources

Find a health care provider or treatment for substance use disorder and mental health:

 

 

 

 

New Study shows Remarkable Results

“It Saved My Life: Depression Treatment with rTMS Turns Lives Around” – new study finds…
A new neural remedy called Stanford neuromodulation therapy is being used to treat people struggling with mental illness with promising results. In five days or less, almost 80% of patients crossed into remission and experienced a normal mood within days.

This article highlights how the use of imaging allows more precise target of rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) treatment resulting in greater effectiveness.

You can read the full article in KQED: https://www.kqed.org/news/11898991/it-saved-my-life-depression-treatment-turns-lives-around-in-five-days

A couple of people who received treatment using this sophisticated targeting were quoted in the article:

After 45 years of depression and numerous failed attempts to medicate his illness, Tommy Van Brocklin, a civil engineer, says he didn’t see a way out. “The past couple of years I just started crying a lot,” he said. “I was just a real emotional wreck.”

So last September, Van Brocklin flew across the country from his home in Tennessee to Stanford, where he underwent the new rTMS treatment. Almost immediately he started feeling more optimistic and sleeping longer and deeper. “I wake up now and I want to come to work, whereas before I’d rather stick a sharp stick in my eye,” said Van Brocklin. “I have not had any depressed days since my treatment.”

He is hopeful the changes stick. More larger studies are needed to verify how long the new rTMS treatment will last.

At least for Emma, the woman who received Stanford’s treatment three years ago in a similar study, the results are holding. She says she still has ups and downs but “it’s an entirely different me dealing with it.”

She says the regimen rewired her from the inside out. “It saved my life, and I’ll be forever grateful,” said Emma, her voice cracking with emotion. “It saved my life.”

These studies are bringing hope to non-invasive and drug-free rTMS treatments!

MeRT involves the use of very sophisticated diagnostics to more precisely target treatment and is seeing some incredible results. Read more about MeRT and our protocols for treatment.

Dr. Mark Liker Featured in Global 1’s Surgeon Spotlight

Each week, Global 1 features a prominent and renowned surgeon in their Surgeon Spotlight. And recently, they honored our very own Dr. Mark Liker. In their post, they wrote that “Dr. Liker’s broad range of training and experience gives him the insight needed to correctly diagnose complex brain and spine issues and identify the most effective treatments for his patients.”

Global 1 is the largest commercially insured bundled surgery network in California and amongst the largest in the nation, with a network of more than 125 outpatient surgery centers. Click here to read their full post honoring Dr. Liker.

 

New Studies on how Covid-19 can affect the Brain

Recent studies are indicating that those who have had Covid-19 may have also experienced effects neurologically, in addition to other long-lasting damage in their lungs and otherwise.

An article in Science News stated:

Early in the pandemic, some infected people noticed a curious symptom: the loss of smell. Reports of other brain-related ssymptoms followed: headaches, confusion, hallucinations, and delirium. Some infections were accompanied by depression, anxiety, and sleep problems.

Recent studies suggest that leaky blood vessels and inflammation are somehow involved in these symptoms. But many basic questions remain unanswered about the virus, which has infected more than 145 million people worldwide. Researchers are still trying to figure out how many people experience these psychiatric or neurological problems, who is most at risk, and how long such symptoms might last.”

One study of electronic health records found that 1 in 3 people had some form of neurological or psychiatric diagnosis within six months of being infected. A vast majority of these were for anxiety or depression. That is extremely high.

Another study found a higher rate of those who had been infected experiencing a stroke later.

Another study looked into the blood vessels of those who had been infected, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, which stated:

One study of electronic health records found that 1 in 3 people had some form of neurological or psychiatric diagnosis within six months of being infected. A vast majority of these were for anxiety or depression. That is extremely high.

Those results suggest that clots, inflamed linings and leaks in the barriers that normally keep blood and other harmful substances out of the brain may all contribute to COVID-related brain damage.”

Another study, by Maura Boldrini, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York. looked into the resultant issues with inflammation and the effects of inflammation on the brain.

Inflammation in the body can cause trouble in the brain, too. Inflammatory signals released after injury can change the way the brain makes and uses chemical signaling molecules, called neurotransmitters, that help nerve cells communicate. Key communication molecules such as serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine can get scrambled when there’s lots of inflammation.

These studies may answer some questions about the psychological after-effects of Covid that some may be experiencing.

To read more about this, you can find the full article here. COVID-19 can affect the brain. New clues hint at how _ Science News

How Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Works to Improve Brain Function

How Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Works to Improve Brain Function

Nearly 50 million Americans report issues with anxiety or depression, and these numbers are on the rise thanks to the current health pandemic. In fact, the US Census Bureau has found that nearly one in three Americans reported signs of clinical anxiety or depression last year.

While there are many different types of mental health issues, they all have one thing in common: They all start in your brain.

Our team of neuromodulation specialists here at BrainStim Centers fully understands this point, which is why we offer an innovative therapy that improves brain networking and function. It’s called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) therapy.

Here’s a look at why this noninvasive and drug-free approach to mental health is becoming so popular in treating everything from anxiety and depression to addiction and chronic pain.

The complexity of the human brain
To say that the human brain is complex is putting it mildly. Consider this: The average human brain is made up of 86 billion neurons, and each of these neurons has 10,000 connections.

These neurons and their connectors form a circuit, which allows electrical activity to pass from one brain cell to the next. These circuits control most of the functions in your body, from muscle movement to mood regulation.

For example, when you have a mood disorder, such as depression, the circuits in your brain that regulate your moods, which are mostly found in your prefrontal cortex, are less active. In turn, these low neurotransmission levels can lead to imbalances in serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine — the primary neurotransmitters associated with depression.

How TMS helps brain function
The goal behind our TMS therapy is to stimulate specific areas of your brain for better function. Through a device that we place on your head, we deliver magnetic pulses that cause brief activity in your brain cells.

As you progress through your treatments, the ongoing stimulation gradually helps your brain form newer, healthier neural pathways.

To give you an idea of the efficacy of TMS therapy, Harvard Medical School reports that roughly 50-60% of people with depression who have “tried and failed to receive benefit from medications experience a clinically meaningful response with TMS.”

TMS and you
One of the many benefits of our TMS therapy is that our neuromodulation specialists are able to directly target the areas of your brain responsible for your mental health issue. To get started, we first perform an MRI, which allows us to get a better look at what’s happening inside your brain.

After we upload the image into our industry-leading Nexstim SmartFocus® system, we’re able to map the areas of your brain that are underactive to come up with a targeted treatment plan.

The TMS treatments themselves are noninvasive, and are usually done in about an hour, from start to finish. You should count on undergoing a series of treatments for best results, but we’ll be sure you understand the timeline beforehand.

If you’d like to break free from your mental health issue with TMS therapy, contact one of our two locations in Encino or Valencia, California, to set up a consultation.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: A New Approach to Treating Depression

Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Making matters worse, the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the problem, with one-third of the population in the United States showing signs of clinical anxiety and/or depression.

Understanding the significant impact that depression can have on your life and on the lives of those around you, the team here at BrainStim Centers offers a non-invasive, drug-free approach to treating depression using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Here’s a look at how TMS is helping our patients lead happy and productive lives.

A closer look at depression
Major depression is one of the most common mood disorders, and it can affect people to varying degrees. Some experience only mild symptoms, while others are trapped in seemingly endless cycles of depression, which is called a recurrent depressive disorder.

While everyone experiences sadness from time to time, depression is entirely different as the neural activity and chemical imbalances in certain areas of the brain, namely the amygdala, thalamus, and hippocampus, make it difficult to regulate mood. Many feel the following signs of depression:

  • Hopeless
  • Helpless
  • Disinterested
  • Lethargic
  • Self-loathing
  • Guilty

Depression can also affect your appetite and sleep and is often accompanied by physical symptoms, such as body aches, headaches, and gastrointestinal upset.

Traditionally, depression is treated using pharmapsychology, psychotherapy, and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), with mixed success. Many find the side effects of medications or ECT to be too cumbersome, not to mention that finding the right combination of therapies can be difficult and time-consuming.

Frustratingly, the more combinations of medications you try, the less likely you’ll respond.

If this sounds familiar, it may be time to explore TMS, which has garnered impressive results among those with major depression and treatment-resistant depression.

How TMS works
Depression starts in the areas of your brain that regulate a person’s mood. While this statement may seem simple enough, depression is incredibly complex. To begin with, you may have an imbalance in brain chemicals that creates a malfunction in your ability to regulate your moods, leaving certain areas of your brain underactive or inactive. Depression is also tied to genetics, trauma, stress, certain medications, and medical issues.

To get to the bottom of your depression, we start with an MRI to get a closer look at the inner workings of your brain, which we upload into our state-of-the-art Nexstim SmartFocus®. The SmartFocus technology then creates a 3D map of your brain, which allows us to identify underactive areas.

From there, we know where to target the magnetic stimulation, which we deliver through a device that we place over your head. This stimulation is designed to reactivate the dormant areas in your brain, which are typically located in your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, creating new neural connections that better control your moods.

Your TMS timeline depends on the severity of your symptoms and how well you respond to the therapy, but you should count on five sessions a week for several weeks to start. The sessions themselves generally last less than an hour and there’s no downtime afterward.

As far as efficacy, studies show that TMS therapy greatly improves the symptoms of depression so much so that our patients begin to live healthy, happy, and productive lives again.

If you want to explore how you can break free of your depression with TMS therapy, contact one of our two offices in Encino or Valencia, California at 310-895-7122 or email us at info@brainstimcenters.com.