ORIGINAL PAPER Beyond Blind Optimism and Unfounded Fears: Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment Resistant Depression Veronica Johansson & Martin Garwicz & Martin Kanje & Helena Röcklinsberg & Jens Schouenborg & Anders Tingström & Ulf Görman Received: 31 May 2010 /Accepted: 8 April 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Abstract The introduction of new medical treatments based on invasive technologies has often been sur- rounded by both hopes and fears. Hope, since a new intervention can create new opportunities either in terms of providing a cure for the disease or impairment at hand; or as alleviation of symptoms. Fear, since an invasive treatment involving implanting a medical device can result in unknown complications such as hardware failure and undesirable medical consequences. However, hopes and fears may also arise due to the cultural embeddedness of technology, where a therapy due to ethical, social, political and religious concerns could be perceived as either a blessing or a threat. While Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for treatment resistant depression (TRD) is still in its cradle, it is important to be proactive and try to scrutinize both surfacing hopes and fears. Patients will not benefit if a promising treatment is banned or avoided due to unfounded fears, nor will they benefit if DBS is used without scrutinizing the arguments which call for caution. Hence blind optimism is equally troublesome. We suggest that specificity, both in terms of a detailed account of relevant scientific concerns as well as ethical considerations, could be a way to analyse expressed concerns regarding DBS for TRD. This approach is particularly fruitful when applied to hopes and fears evoked by DBS for TRD, since it can reveal if our comprehension of DBS for TRD suffer from various biases which may remain unnoticed at first glance. We suggest that such biases exist, albeit a further analysis is needed to explore this issue in full. Keywords Depression . Deep brain stimulation . Ethics . Beneficence . Nonmaleficence . Time Introduction The introduction of new medical treatments based on invasive technologies has often been surrounded by both hopes and fears. Hope, since a new intervention can create new opportunities either in terms of providing a cure for the disease or impairment at hand, or as Neuroethics DOI 10.1007/s12152-011-9112-x V. Johansson (*) : M. Garwicz : M. Kanje : J. Schouenborg : U. Görman Neuronano Research Center, Lund University, Lund, Sweden e-mail: Veronica.Johansson@med.lu.se V. Johansson : H. Röcklinsberg : U. Görman Ethics Unit, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, Lund, Sweden M. Garwicz : J. Schouenborg Neurophysiology Unit, Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden M. Kanje Department of Cell and Organism Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden A. Tingström Molecular Psychiatry Unit, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden