This is episode 2 of The Deep End. Listen to more episodes here.
Depression can affect not just the mind, but the body, too. Inner experiences of mental struggles are private. But in this episode, Jon Nelson and another volunteer, Amanda, let listeners in. Woven into their stories is a brief history of deep brain stimulation, the experimental treatment that involves permanent brain implants. You’ll hear how that research — with its ups and downs — carried the experiments to where they are today.
Transcript
Laura Sanders: This episode deals with mental illness, depression, and suicide. Please listen with care. Previously on The Deep End:
Barbara: He would be up in bed with the lights out or watching like endless hours of television and it was very unpredictable and then there’s a whole life going on downstairs.
Jon: That isolation, there’s a little bit of lying involved because you just wanna get out of things, right?
Mayberg: I think part of why this kind of treatment resistant depression is so painful and so associated with high rates of suicide, is that you’re suffering. You know exactly what you’re trying to get away from and you can’t move. And if you do move, it follows you. There’s no relief.
Jon: I’d be the one standing up in front of everybody leading the champagne toast, and then I’d be driving home and wanting to slam my car into a tree.
Sanders: Today we’re going to get into some heavy stuff, but there’s light at the end, I promise. We’re going to pull back the curtain on what depression can do to the body and to the brain. Maybe you know that feeling firsthand. If you don’t, you probably know somebody who does. You’ll also hear the backstory of some people who volunteered for the experiment and the backstory of the science itself. I’m Laura Sanders. Welcome to The Deep End.
Jon: I had poison in every single bit of my body. It literally ran throughout…
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