4 ms·
I work with DBS. It's primarily used for motor disorders like Parkinson's disease and dystonia. It works fantastically well. Patients move better and take le
by caycep 14y ago
I work with DBS.
It's primarily used for motor disorders like Parkinson's disease and dystonia. It works fantastically well. Patients move better and take less meds.
It's not some fancy brain programming - you can modify the signal somewhat, but the current tech is essentially a hot-rigged Medtronic heart pacemaker that is wired to the brain instead. You set it at around 0.5 - 3.5 V (I think depression they often crank it up to 5-6 V, for no better reason than just because...), around 60-120 microsecond pulse duration, and between 60-180 Hz. So no, not in-depth brain programming yet.
For depression- it's much harder to know because the scales are much more subjective. For PD, dystonia - easy - measure if they are moving or not. For depression, you need a complex scale that tries to quantify "how do you feel"? Plus, it's open label and non blinded, so yes, they are going to say, "I feel better" after they've underwent surgery like that.
For those of you who are interested in DBS for depression, pubmed the papers by Helen Mayberg of Emory and Andres Lozano of the University of Toronto. It's promising, but still far from ready for prime time - studies are open label and too preliminary.
Ironic that the major quotes are from the division head of Medtronic, who, although he's a really smart and a really nice guy, is an executive of the company that stand to receive financial gain. Not that they shouldn't quote him, but they should have contacted the researchers who did the studies first.
Other issues: I think transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS/rTMS is much more widely used that tDCS, on the account of tDCS limits how much energy you can zap without causing pain. There is one device that is approved for TMS in depression- the problem is that the effects don't last too much longer after you shut the machine off. (DBS stays on 24/7). What's scandalous about that device is, there's some sort of disposable widget that costs >$100 a pop and is one use only. Nice cash flow for the devive manufacturer built into the design...