Curing Mental Disorders: Brain Implants to Aid Combat Veterans

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)  is launching a five-year project that's aimed at better treatments for mental illnesses experienced by combat veterans. As one of the first pieces of President Obama's BRAIN initiative that was unveiled last year, researchers at the University of California San Francisco and Massachusetts General Hospital will work on brain implants that can be used to treat depression, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and post-traumatic stress disorder, specifically seen in military personnel. 

"We've seen far too many times where military personnel have neuropsychiatric disorders and there's very few options," said Justin Sanchez, a program manager at DARPA, via NPR. 

As certain brain stimulation devices are already available to help patients with various issues, including Parkinson's disease, Sanchez said DARPA is looking for a more sophisticated method to tackle the problem. 

A DARPA news release from 2013 shows that around 100,000 people throughout the world already use brain stimulation devices to help manage dystonia and other health issues. Yet most of the devices are referred to as "brain pacemakers," with relatively simple settings. Researchers hope that the implants can provide a more critical response to those in need. 

"While [the current brain stimulation] devices have been shown to be effective, they are very much built on concepts from the cardiac pacemaker industry," Sanchez added, via NPR. "And we know that the brain is very different than the heart."

Researchers also hope that this will not only help members of the military suffering from mental health issues, but also increase awareness of mental health.

"Despite recent advances, clinicians and researchers remain limited by the tools available to study, understand and treat systems of the brain," the agency wrote in the 2013 release. "The science has, to this point, been largely based on a century of identifying associations between features of complex behaviors and diffuse understanding of the brain. [This project] seeks to move beyond this limited understanding to create new interventions based on new insights that can be gained from the intersection of neuroscience, neurotechnology and clinical therapy."