Botox could reduce depression and anxiety

Botox injections to stave off creases made by frowning and a furrowed brow may help alleviate some symptoms of depression, a study suggests.

Botox is a common beauty treatment to alleviate wrinkles by paralysing facial muscles with the toxin from the bacteria Clostridium botulinum. It is also used for non-superficial medical needs, such as to prevent excessive sweating, incontinence and migraines.

But previous studies have shown that botox can also have the beneficial side-effect of improving a person’s mood and helping with some symptoms of depression.

Researchers studied how botox treatments to the forehead area impact on the emotional state of 45 women with borderline personality disorder (BPD), a condition which manifests as impulsivity and prominent negative emotions.

The study's senior author, Dr Axel Wollmer of Semmelweis University, said: "This is one of the most common personality disorders with symptoms of emotional instability and impulsive behaviour.

"Patients suffering from BPD experience an excess of negative emotions like anger and fear.

"Our hypothesis was that relaxing the muscles in the forehead with botox will interrupt a feedback loop between the face and the brain and thereby reduce these negative emotions."

Botox could play a role in treating depression

During the study, the women received either botox or acupuncture and were quizzed both before and afterwards about their emotional state.

This task involved them trying to control their reactions to certain cues as they saw pictures of faces with different emotional expressions presented to them on a computer screen, while researchers monitored their brain activity.

MRI scans of the injected patients showed that when people had botox to the forehead they had less activity in some regions of the brain which are involved with emotional processing.