Feeling down? Got a $150,000? Willing to have a pair of dime-sized holes drilled in your skull and a power source implanted under your collarbone? Welcome to the wonderful world of Deep Brain Stimulation. Scientists have known for a while that electrical stimulation of the brain can have myriad surprising results for people with different neurological and psychiatric diagnoses. ECT, however, can be debilitating, with negative long-term side effects.
Rather than deliver a massive dose of generalized electricity, this new technology delivers electricity only to "pinpointed locations," via tiny electrodes. Already a proven treatment for Parkinson's disease, it is now being tested on "severe depression, chronic pain and epilepsy...obsessive compulsive disorder, traumatic brain injuries and Alzheimer's disease."
It won't be long now. Soon we'll all be able to reprogram our own brains!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Shock to the System
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2 comments:
I've had ECT and large sections of my childhood memories have never returned. I'll never do it again, but I do hold out some hope for these new procedures.
yeah, very different from ECT. they pinpoint a nub of your brain about the size of a tic tac and just use a manageable amount of electricity. those who undergo the procedure do not experience those debilitating effects. in fact, they can't see any difference when they're switched on. it's a gradual change, and weeks or months later they start to notice they feel better.
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