Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex is located in the anterior part of the frontal lobe. It is highly developed in humans, playing a role in the regulation of complex cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning.

The PFC produces the attributes that define human identity: ambition, empathy, foresight, personality, a sense of morality, and a sense of dignity.

When the left prefrontal lobe is damaged, patients may withdraw from the social world and show a marked resistance to do anything at all. They seem to lose all interest in their future and show little to no moral compunctions. IQ, language, and memory remain unaffected, but some of the quintessential human functions like empathy and ambition become inhibited.

The main functions of the prefrontal cortex are: 

• Coordinating and adjusting complex behavior
• Controlling impulses
• Displaying appropriate emotional reactions
• Manifesting personality
• Focusing attention
• Considering and prioritizing competing and simultaneous information
• Ignoring external distractions

• Complex planning
• Assessing options and choosing a course of behavior
• Deferring certain immediate gratifications in order to obtain greater long-term benefits
• The left half of pre-frontal cortex is involved in establishing positive feelings
• The right half is involved in establishing negative feelings

A number of other factors contribute to the development of depression: such as genetical disposition, biochemical imbalance in the body, electric signal pathologies in the brain, medical conditions, and medications.

When depression develops due to emotional causes, it manifests as impaired expression – a person’s perceived inability or unwillingness to feel and express their emotions. People suppress their thoughts and feelings, creating mental structures to avoid dealing with and processing the root cause of trauma. Eventually, they lose touch with themselves, as their synaptic connections atrophy in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Poor diet, genetic conditions, blood sugar imbalances, medical illness, hormone imbalance, lack of exercise, medications, drug and alcohol use, and digestive difficulties are also known to cause or contribute to depression and inhibiting the function of the prefrontal cortex.

In brain-imaging studies using PET scans, depressed people display abnormally low activity in the prefrontal cortex, and the severity of the depression often correlates with the extent of the decline in activity in the prefrontal cortex.

Because the left half of the prefrontal cortex is involved in establishing positive feelings, it is the left prefrontal cortex that shows the greatest signs of weakness in depressed people. In other words, when people are depressed, they find it very hard not only to set goals in order to obtain rewards but also to believe that such goals can be achieved. 

• Patients sit in a comfortable reclining chair in a dedicated room of our spa-like clinics.
• An electromagnetic coil is placed on the left side of the patient’s forehead, allowing magnetic pulses to be safely delivered through the scalp to the brain.

• Each treatment lasts about four minutes.
• Therapy takes place five times a week for six to eight weeks, with 50-60% of patients reporting a complete lift of depressive symptoms by the end of six weeks.