Dr. Patrick J. Treacy

We have all seen individuals whose mood has changed positively following BTX-A injection in the brow area. Now there is growing evidence that treatment of the glabellar area may actually be used to treat depression. In this paper Dr. Patrick Treacy looks at the current data to support this theory.
Depression affects over 120 million people globally, making it one of the leading causes of disability in the world. Although there are various effective treatments, therapeutic response remains unsatisfactory and depression can develop as a chronic condition in a considerable proportion of patients. Negative emotions, such as anger, fear, and sadness are prevalent in depression and also are associated with hyperactivity of the corrugator and procerus muscles in the glabellar region of the face. In 1872, Charles Darwin recognised these features as a very specific expression of sadness and attributed them to the activity of so-called ‘grief muscles’ in the glabellar region. He also formulated a new theory called the ‘facial feedback hypothesis’, which implied a mutual interaction between emotions and facial muscle activity. More recently, Larsen et al. have shown experimental evidence that voluntary contraction of facial muscles can channel emotions, which are conversely expressed by activation of these muscles.

Heckmann and others (1992) have published data suggesting that treatment of the glabellar region with botulinum toxin produces a change in facial expression from angry, sad, and fearful to happy and this can impact on emotional experience. Many therapists, including Sommer (2003) have shown that patients who have been treated in the glabellar area reported an increase in emotional wellbeing and reduced levels of fear and sadness beyond what would be expected from the cosmetic benefit alone. Hennenlotter (2009) went one stage further and showed that botulinum toxin treatment to the glabellar area stopped the activation of limbic brain regions normally seen during voluntary contraction of the corrugator and procerus muscles. This indicated that feedback from the facial musculature in this region in some way modulated the processing of emotions. Many other researchers have continued down this road with Havas (2010) noting that the processing time for sentences with negative affective connotation was prolonged in women after glabellar botulinum toxin treatment and Neal and Chartrand (2011) speculating that the treatment interfered with the ability to decode the facial expression of other people. This is where things were until recently with many authors suggesting that this capacity to counteract negative emotions could be put to some clinical use during the treatment of depression.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140608174205-31515886-botox-and-depression