Well, there are several angles on this that intrigue me, assuming that studies with larger numbers of patients show similar positive results. The explanation offered so far is that the muscles in the face that cooperate with the nervous system's signalling of depression are inhibited by the treatment, as in frozen muscles that can no longer consciously embody the neural impulses; however, it appears, at least in these pilot studies, that depression re-appears once the treatment wears off, indicating that the effects are truly only inhibitory rather than a feedback-type of retraining of the brain through changes in facial expression.

For the duration of the treatment, patients are said to be able to think depressing thoughts but cannot feel the emotion of depression, which parallels how the depression persists below the surface of conscious experience as long as the agent remains active in controlling the facial muscles; it's as though the subconscious isn't being allowed to communicate its contents into conscious awareness mediated in the face. Our faces embody our emotional states even as we sit and ruminate over various conflicts, and these expressions are part of that feed-back loop which is so powerful, such as in how facial expression mediates early attachment relationships, as emotions don't wait upon well-developed mentation in the infant and young child.

Notice that when love is felt, or just any of the garden-variety emotions, the face is part of the feelng awareness itself. There is an emerging facial expression that seems to consumate, as it were, whatever is being felt, seeming to respond more quickly that we can alter it. But again, the pilot studies indicate that even though the face functions in this biofeeback way, the depression remains and reappears after the treatment effects are lost. The painful emotion is being disconnected from conscious identity as manifested in the face, rather than consciously felt and released as energy between levels of awareness, as in the research showing success in the treatment of depression through the cognitive behavioral adaptation of Buddhist mindfulness training; this has data suggesting the forebrain becoming more competent in processing limbic impulses.

http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publica.../february/pinard.asp

This treatment for vanity, which we all have, seems a sad expression of medicine, in the sense of further splitting or disassociating patients from their inner life, although severe depression treated with psychotherapy and anti-depressants is probably more costly in time and money, not to mention requiring a confrontation with the false self that botox treatments may only reinforce in the long-run.


http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Heal...ry?id=2003009&page=1