Uncover the biology of mental health with brain stimulation technology

i want you to take a moment

and close your eyes now think of five of

your closest friends

one of them will experience a mental

health problem

or illness this year open your eyes

for me that person was my grandpa he

suffered from lung disease

and depression we lived together and

every day i would make sure that he had

enough oxygen for his lungs

but i had no idea how to treat or even

talk about his depression

my grandpa is not alone mental health is

a complex balance affected by our

surroundings our past traumas

our minds and our bodies mental illness

is treatable

but our friends affected face immense

challenges when navigating our

healthcare system

my name is raj and i’m a researcher at

the e-brain lab at simon fraser

university

led by dr farzan as a community engaged

engineering student

i’ve always wanted to make a big impact

through technology

i remember building a wearable device to

track my grandpa’s oxygen level from my

phone

i became fascinated by what the human

body can tell us

through its many rhythms and signals but

when i took a course on how to read from

the brain

and even change its behavior it finally

clicked

i realized i could help people like my

grandpa by pursuing graduate studies in

neuroengineering

i was thrilled to realize that we can

combine neuroscience

and engineering to uncover the human

brain

and one application is to find better

ways to treat

and diagnose mental illness but what’s

wrong with how we do it today

if you’ve never experienced mental

illness it’s hard to understand how the

health care system works

so i’d like you to close your eyes and

imagine a new scenario

you’re lying on your bed with a horrible

fever

so you force yourself to get up and ask

a friend to get you some tylenol

you take your dose but after a few hours

you realize it’s not working

your fever is raging out of control so

you friend goes back to the pharmacy to

get you another brand

again it doesn’t quite work and now you

have strange side effects like

nausea weight gain and even lower libido

only after many many tries do you find

the right drug

which stops the fever open your eyes

wasn’t that frustrating this process of

trial and error

is typical for patients with mental

illness but instead of each treatment

lasting a few hours a single treatment

can last for months

to years to make it worse there are many

different mental illnesses

and a single person can have multiple

each disorder

can have many different subtypes and

overlapping symptoms

make diagnosis a nightmare bipolar

disorder is one of the most difficult to

diagnose

seventy percent of people with bipolar

disorder are misdiagnosed initially

and thirty percent don’t receive a

correct diagnosis for an entire decade

even when diagnosed correctly

finding the right treatment is daunting

for example

youth with depression have less than a

50 percent chance of success

on their first round of antidepressants

it can take years

and years of trying medication and

therapy to find a treatment

that actually works side effects are

another major issue

one of the most effective treatments for

someone who doesn’t respond to

medication

is to actually induce a seizure but the

most common way to do this is through

electroconvulsive therapy

which comes with the risk of memory loss

while many people do find a successful

treatment

there are so many others who fall

through the cracks

remember our mental health is shaped by

this complex interaction of our internal

biology

and our external surroundings but today

i want to focus on our biology

we do not have a one-size-fits-all

solution for mental illness

because our brains and our bodies are so

complex

like cell phones on a network there are

many different ways that our 86 billion

neurons talk to each other

and when groups of these brain cells are

sending the wrong message

it can cause trouble it’s hard to figure

out which connections are malfunctioning

so we often group unrelated problems

together into the same disease

combined with natural genetic variations

across the population

it is no surprise that the same

treatment can have different effects

on different people it’s time to come up

with a solution

what if we could create a simple

objective test sort of like an eye exam

but for mental health

a test for the brain that could match

patients to an effective and

personalized treatment

well researchers around the world are

working on it

to pinpoint these specific problems in

the human brain

we need to unravel its incredible

complexity

and i’m so excited to share with you the

unique challenges

and technologies that shape this journey

at the core of our research is a safe

and non-invasive technique

called transcranial magnetic stimulation

or

tms for short transcranial means

through the skull so this technique

passes a strong magnetic field

through your skull to activate your

brain

in fact it works quite similar to

wireless charging in cell phones

we place a wand near your head without

actually touching it

next we charge up the coils of wire on

the wand with a strong

magnetic field suddenly a targeted

region of your brain

lights up for just a few milliseconds

the fast-changing magnetic field causes

neurons in your brain

to fire and create signals

magnetic stimulation is a powerful

technique

but how deep does it go in your brain

and does it affect parts of the brain

that we don’t want to target the answer

is that stimulation

generally activates a small shallow area

in the brain

but human anatomy helps us out most of

our brain’s processing including vision

and sound

all happens on the thin winding outer

layer called the cortex

some of this layer is close enough to

the skull to target with magnetic

stimulation

but what about the equally important

deep regions in our brain which process

memory and emotion well

we can reach these deep regions by

targeting areas on the cortex

which are connected through white matter

white matter is like the ethernet cables

that wire up different parts of our

brain

these special neurons allow the brain to

form connections

and different networks allowing regions

to talk to each other forming our

consciousness and our thoughts

and tms is a great tool to study these

connections and how they change

through life and illness at our lab we

use an mri scan

to map out our brains to find regions to

target it’s actually really fun

to target the part of your brain that

controls movement the stimulation is

precise enough to twitch individual

fingers on your hand

without your conscious control and when

you experience it for yourself

it’s mind-boggling in fact most people

can try

brain stimulation safely the most common

side effects include headaches or

twitching

which usually disappear over time we can

also use this amazing tool for

therapeutics repetitive magnetic

stimulation

is already used as a treatment for major

depression

we target the prefrontal cortex near

your forehead we don’t exactly know how

it works but we think it reduces

symptoms

by changing how connected this region is

to the rest of your brain

by stimulating the same region

repeatedly we can encourage neurons to

form new connections

and discard old ones thereby changing

the behavior of our brain

long term this crucial concept is called

neuroplasticity

we can use it to reshape the brain’s

communication network

just like we can reshape plasticine in

our hands

we can take it a step further and read

out the brain’s electrical activity

using eeg neurons communicate through

tiny electrical pulses and when these

neurons are synchronized

we can record these pulses through

sensors on your scalp

picture this your doctor taps your knee

with the rubber hammer to measure your

reflex

similarly we are safely zapping a tiny

region of your brain

then measuring the entire electrical

response over one second

the shape of that response is like the

signature

of the brain reading these brain

signatures

can distinguish youth with depression

which could be a huge leap forward for

accurate diagnosis

we can collect someone’s brain data

combined with what treatment plan work

for them

after collecting thousands of data

points we could recommend similar

treatments

to others with similar brain signatures

this could enhance traditional

psychiatric assessments

to find the right treatment on the first

try

and we can measure progress in a whole

new way

just like her handwritten signatures

improved from when we’re in grade 2

to wenburn university our brain

signatures can improve

with time and with treatment

tracking these signatures can even help

us develop new interventions that target

specific deficiencies of the brain

we can learn so much from these brain

responses

but there’s a catch we have very little

idea of how stimulating one region

results in an activity across the entire

brain

to add to this confusion magnetic

stimulation creates a large clicking

noise

which can activate parts of the brain

that process sound

this interferes with the signal that we

actually want to record

we need more information to pull apart

these signals and get a clear scan of

our brain signature

scalp recordings are fast portable and

relatively cheap

but are not precise enough to locate

activity from individual brain areas

so we need to go a level deeper and by

deeper

i mean underneath our skulls our

research participants are getting their

brains mapped before surgery

with hundreds of sensors spread all over

their cortex

and deep brain regions just like humans

communicate over wi-fi

radio and cellular the brain

communicates at many different

frequencies

too with this technique we record the

fastest brain activity at 250 times a

second

if recording from the scalp is video

from an old nokia phone

recording from inside the skull is full

screen high definition

despite a new set of challenges we still

apply magnetic stimulation to

our participants we can finally see how

activating one brain region causes

signals to spread

across the entire brain this new probing

tool can help answer a variety of

questions

about how we think we feel and move

through the world

i’d like to use this tool to isolate

unwanted

auditory and sensory signals from

magnetic stimulation

we can learn so much more about these

signals and then subtract

them from our scalp recordings this will

help us

measure accurately the brain signatures

of anyone

without having to do any surgery

by combining these different ways to

measure and modulate the brain

we can arrive at a deeper truth and it

takes an interdisciplinary team of

experts

to make it happen i’d like to

acknowledge our collaborators

across canada the university of iowa the

mayo clinic and the e-brain lab

there is a global network of doctors

neuroscientists

psychologists and engineers exploring

these new technologies

including many i haven’t covered today

there’s still a lot of engineering work

left to be done

like building portable sensors and

stimulators to make it easier for

patients

ultimately our goal is to translate our

findings from the research lab

to the doctor’s office so that one day

in the future

treating mental illness might be as

simple as getting glasses

and yet there is so much that we can do

today

i invite you to show compassion and

understanding to yourselves

and your loved ones join the fight to

eliminate the stigma around mental

illness

support policies that reduce poverty and

systemic oppression

and make mental health services

accessible to

everyone remember that a healthier

society

goes hand in hand with healthier brains

while our research isn’t quite ready to

meet the public

it presents the potential to build an

intelligent mental health care system of

the future

wouldn’t it be amazing if our loved ones

could have access to rapid and effective

treatments

to live their incredible lives to the

fullest

it sure would have been great if my

grandpa could have gotten the right

treatment

to enjoy his last few years he was a

philosopher

intrigued by the human condition and i

would remember him reading stephen

hawking

dostoevsky and tagore to me growing up

he would have been thrilled if his

treatments and diagnostics came from

unraveling

our incredible complex brains

i’m so excited to continue my work at

the intersection of technology

biology and the social sciences to help

create a healthier society

one where we can all get the treatment

that we need

and we deserve thank you

you