Re:A new form of brain stimulation relieved severe depressio...
by JamesBarney on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @04:43PM
(#22807266)
I've seen lots of studies come and go but I don't remember any which demonstrated as dramatic a change as this one.
This study showed a 30 point improvement on the MADRS, that's from 35 -> 5. That's insane, the typical anti-depressant move a patient 3 points.
What happened? 21 people got this technique applied to them, and 19 of them achieved remission. The average person in this study went from severely depressed to not depressed in 5 days. I'm a big fan of Gelman and the garden of forking paths, but you can't fork your way to a result like that.
Something interesting happened here, even if it's not the therapy.
That's just math.
The question is how believable it is that the entire effect is attributable to the magnet intervention.
Exciting research results announced in university press releases turn about to be something cool infrequently to put it mildly (also true for small studies, also true for medical results, also true for self-reported studies, etc), so my prior is that most or all of the effect will go away.