MRI scans may help treat depression, new study says

• Harvard Medical School researchers found MRI scanners, which take internal images of the body, can have the same effect as standard anti-depressants.
• The team employed a rarely-used type of scan known as EP-MRSI which tends to be used for brain scans.
• But UK experts said they were sceptical about the findings and said more research was needed.
• The team found rats experiencing stress and exhibiting helplessness - the rat equivalent of despair - recovered significantly when exposed to EP-MRSI, the journal Biological Psychiatry reported.
• The scientists carried out the study after doctors reported similar effects in human patients with bipolar disorder.
• Lead researcher Dr Bruce Cohen, a psychiatrist at the McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, which is affiliated to Harvard Medical School, said the findings had the potential to revolutionise depression treatment.
• "The rats behaved as if they had received an anti-depressant.
• "That's why the implications of this work have the potential to be so profound."
• But William Carlezon, who also took part in the study, added it could also mean that some forms of MRI could be damaging to patients.
• "Renewed caution is warranted when high-speed MRI is used to diagnose or study disorders involving the brain.
• "People assume when they are getting an MRI that nothing is happening, that you are simply getting a picture of the brain.
• "But in actuality the body is being exposed to magnetic and electrical fields.
• "They may cause other effects we don't understand yet."
• But consultant psychiatrist Cosmo Hallstrom, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the report should be treated with caution.
• "Not many rats are like patients so we have to be careful when we interpret findings based on animal models.