Botox for Treating Depression?

Has the changing of the seasons got you feeling a little blue?  No fear...Botox is here!:)  If your spa already offers botox injections, you might be able to add treatment for depression to your list of services.  The increasingly popular wrinkle-reducing muscle relaxant may hamper your ability to to convey emotion but researchers are finding that to be a good thing when battling depression.

For the study, researchers selected 30 participants suffering from major depression and gave half of them 5 injections of Botox between and just above the eyebrows while the other half were given placebo injections in the same places.  During the 16 week study, researchers found patients who were injected with the placebo had a 9 percent reduction in depressive symptoms, while patients injected with Botox had a 47 percent decrease in symptoms.

This  study suggests that facial muscles do not only let others know how you feel, but are also instrumental in regulating your own mood. How? The study's author, M. Axel Wollmer, a psychiatrist from Switzerland's University of Basel, says that facial muscles might not just tell other people how you feel — they might tell your brain how you feel, too. And because Botox relaxes those muscles, it may prevent your face from telling your brain that you're blue.

*Source:  The Week, "Can Botox Treat Depression?"