New research suggests that Botox isn’t just good for smoothing lines and wrinkles, it may help patients cope with a major depressive disorder that has so far proved unresponsive to antidepressant medications. In the first randomized and controlled study on botulinum toxin, researchers gave half the study participants a single dose (consisting of five injections) of Botox in an area just above the eyebrows, while the other half of the group received a placebo.

Depressive symptoms in the treatment group decreased in the group that received Botox by 47 percent after six weeks. That improvement, moreover, held true throughout the rest of the 16-week study period while those in the placebo group showed just a 9 percent reduction in symptoms. Study author M. Axel Wollmer, a psychiatrist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, believes that Botox treatment “interrupts feedback from the facial musculature to the brain, which may be involved in the development and maintenance of negative emotions.” Earlier studies have linked Botox with depression for the very same reason — that by paralyzing facial expressions, it forced patients to internalize all their negative feelings. Not being able to express these emotions, however, may actually benefit people suffering from treatment-resistant depression.