Groundbreaking brain research could lead to new non-drug treatments

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Breathing exercises and music may eventually be deployed to treat mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression, thanks to groundbreaking brain research led by Ottawa scientists.

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In the coming weeks and months, researchers will begin clinical trials aimed at using breathing techniques to treat anxiety in patients and music to treat clinical depression.

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These experimental treatments were individually tailored based in part on the neuronal activity in the patient’s brain, and were developed by Georg Nousov, Ph.D., Canadian Research Chair of the Institute for Brain and Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa and the Department of Clinical Psychiatry. It is the culmination of research led by a doctor. A patient at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Center.

The study was the first to reveal the connection between the physical brain and the mind, and could lead to potential therapies to treat common and debilitating mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety and mania. opened the way.

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A clinical trial, expected to begin in the coming weeks, aims to measure the impact of individually designed respiratory therapy on patients with anxiety. A second clinical trial, starting early next year, will measure the impact of individually tuned music based on a patient’s neural activity in treating depression.

Northoff’s team demonstrated that the temporal and spatial patterns of the brain, including the rate and rhythm of neural activity, reappear in the spatial/temporal patterns of people’s mental states. Researchers borrow from physics and engineering to measure patterns and show how neural activity is related to mental traits such as consciousness and self.

Northoff calls it the missing “common currency” between the brain and the mind.

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For example, when people experience depression, they lose energy and feel that nothing is moving or changing. This reflects a dramatic slowdown in brain activity.

Northoff says that when clinically depressed patients are asked how they feel, they often feel as if time has stood still and nothing is moving.

One patient, he said, was unable to speak and said he felt that his mother was speaking too quickly to keep up with the words.

Music therapy to treat depressed patients would be based on trying to speed up abnormally slow neural activity, he said. By using fast-paced music and rhythm, we aim to slowly speed up neural activity and improve the symptoms of depression in patients.

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The therapy may also help patients experiencing mania, in which the brain exhibits abnormally high levels of neuronal activity.

In anxiety disorders, patients experience uncertainty about what will happen next. In the brains of patients experiencing anxiety, scientists observe sudden and unpredictable changes in brain activity levels that reflect the sense of uncertainty felt by the patient.

Breathing exercises are aimed at stabilizing and regulating sudden and unpredictable changes in brain activity, Dr. Northoff said.

Breathing techniques have long been used around the world and are a mainstay of practices such as yoga.

Northoff, who recently visited India, said many people in India who spoke to him about his work said it made perfect sense.

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For example, there is no shortage of therapies using breathing techniques and music, but they are not science-based. , said it should be more effective.

He hopes that a small clinical trial will show the efficacy of the treatment and lead to larger trials.

“This could pave the way for the use of science-based non-pharmaceutical therapies.”