Non-Invasive Stimulation of the Brain Ended Opioid Addiction, Cigarette Craving (jpost.com)
- Reference: 0184121552
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/26/221205/non-invasive-stimulation-of-the-brain-ended-opioid-addiction-cigarette-craving
- Source link: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900599
> [T]he team of specialists at the Haifa medical center intervened in the electrical activity of an area of the patient's brain called the nucleus accumbens, the core of the brain system responsible for feelings of satisfaction, pleasure, and reward. The treatment, based on technology from the Israeli company Insightec, is similar to the one used to treat symptoms of essential tremor and Parkinsonian tremor, under MRI control. In this case, the treatment was carried out with the help of a new technology that performs noninvasive neuromodulation, without heating or burning tissue, and allows stimulation in the same area of the brain to increase or suppress activity...
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> "Tests carried out a week later produced negative results for opioids and other substances," [said Dr. Lior Lev-Tov, director of the functional neurosurgery unit in Rambam's neurosurgery division and the one leading the new study at the medical center.] "The patient himself reported a craving score of zero out of 10 for using the drug, and even another side effect, a drastic drop in the desire for cigarettes, from three packs a day to just a few cigarettes, and with no urge to use alcohol. In other words, in a treatment that lasted about 20 minutes net, our patient was completely freed from an extreme dependence that had accompanied him every day for years. This is nothing less than a medical and therapeutic revolution."
Dr. Lev-Tov added that "This experience opens doors for us to treat a wide range of very serious illnesses such as PTSD, OCD, eating disorders, other addictions, severe depression, severe pain disorders, and I hope we will also be able to reach cognitive areas and treat attention deficit disorders, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and more."
Thanks to Slashdot reader [2]Bruce66423 for sharing the article.
[1] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900599
[2] https://www.slashdot.org/~Bruce66423
Re: (Score:2)
It's actually African, although I'm sure Mexico has some clinics.
It also involves going on a vision quest which, may or may not be more difficult than this new procedure. (The vision quest also may or may not be part of the therapeutic effect.)
For their next trick.... (Score:2)
Treating compulsive shopping, gambling, etc. :)
Re: (Score:2)
> Treating compulsive shopping, gambling, etc. :)
Woah, hold up. The hell makes you think US Capitalism wants to cut back on all that sweet, sweet GDP?
Did anyone speculate as to why a $200 billion dollar legal gambling market, keeps bookies in Federal prison? Because I’m willing to bet a member of the Congressional Insider Trading Consortium is willing to bet on it.
There’s a reason US education doesn’t include financial education. Treating a compulsive shopping disorder will soon be considered an act of terror against American fiscal p
Re: (Score:2)
What? That would be un-American! Clearly this "treatment" needs to be outlawed immediately!
Pleasure helmet? (Score:2)
So we can now non-invasively mess with the pleasure areas of the brain? Has the pleasure (or on the dark side, pain) helmet been invented?
Re: Pleasure helmet? (Score:2)
No, that doesn't exist yet. Children will have to keep using mobile apps and loot boxes.
Re: (Score:2)
It will exist in our lifetime, unless outlawed like human cloning. This seems to be one area sci-fi media is lacking. I wonder what it'll do to animal training and how much it'll screw them up with their owners being able to directly and artificially stimulate their brains.
I wonder if we'll get the opposite too: For criminals, go through this brain pain punishment or spend XX years in jail. Well I guess we could do that now and we don't so that probably won't happen. It'll be go to jail and get zapped
We call it surgical but we're using hammers (Score:2)
We're so far from an understanding of all the interconnected systems and how they function that I'd be concerned about the other things the patient suddenly has no urge to do, perhaps, say, eat, recreate...
Re: (Score:2)
If the patient stops being a drug addict, I thinks it is a minor risk that he may have lower chances to become the next Leonardo da Vinci.
Papers (Score:3)
They're calling it Focused Ultra Sound which means using an MRI to guide stimulation of millimeter-scale areas of the brain to disrupt electrical activity there.
So many ads and press releases on a web search but I did find this bibliography:
[1]https://www.zotero.org/groups/... [zotero.org]
It's weird how these hospitals don't link papers in the news releases as is common in the West.
Curiously there was an article yesterday about Ultrasound brain imaging so it might be possible to combine the two modalities. This seems like an "obvious to a practitioner" approach though noise cancelation will be needed.
[2]https://alephneuro.com/blog/ul... [alephneuro.com]
We might actually be capable of realizing that headband where you walk into Sick Bay and tell Dr. Crusher you have Holodeck addiction and she slaps it on your forehead for twenty minutes and tells you to lay down and then come back if it recurs.
[1] https://www.zotero.org/groups/4793001/fus-io_annotated_database/item-listtero.org/groups/4793001/fus-io_annotated_database/item-list
[2] https://alephneuro.com/blog/ultrasound-brain
great! (Score:2, Troll)
now point that thing at your skulls, maybe it can get you off that genocidal mania and your "chosen people" delusion.
I've seen this before (Score:2)
[1]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708798/mediaviewer/rm375605248/
Update (Score:2)
The Jerusalem Post reports that Dr. Lev-Tov and the doctors at Haifa's Rambam Health Care Campus have all fallen out of a very high window, along with the single computer containing all of their research.
Sincerely, The Tobacco Industry
Alternate treatment (Score:2)
[1]Quitters, Inc [wikipedia.org] has a 98% success rate and guarantees that the person will quit smoking forever.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quitters,_Inc.
Tasp! (Score:2)
They've created the first tasp! Wireheads rejoice!