Neurologist Helen Mayberg cringes at the slow pace of DBS research. Her first paper describing DBS for depression in the subcallosal cingulate (then called Brodmann Area 25) appeared in the journal Neuron in 2005. Almost 20 years later, she almost can’t believe that researchers are not further along in bringing this technique to people who would benefit from it.
Mayberg hopes to see the treatment become streamlined. The first heart pacemaker was an incredible piece of technology, but it was giant and clunky. Today, the powerful device, usually about the size of a matchbook, sits near millions of people’s hearts, keeping them beating. As with the heart, for the brain, “how do you go from complicated to simple? Everything is about the prototyping and the simplification,” she says.
What’s next? “What’s the future of this, the future three steps ahead?” Mayberg says. “I have no idea.”
Despite stories from Jon Nelson and others, deep brain stimulation still has its stigma to overcome, even in the research world. Questions of autonomy — of control over feelings and actions — crop up in ethics discussions of brain technology. But to Martijn Figee, the psychiatrist and DBS researcher who has worked with many people implanted with electrodes, those questions are a “luxury problem.” That framing ignores the idea that mental illness itself takes away a person’s control. “People who work in DBS are always a little frustrated by these discussions,” Figee says. “We’re always like, ‘Talk to the patients.’”
2023-09-21 08:33:32
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