THIS week will see the first live televised surgery to implant electrodes into the brain of a person with Parkinson鈥檚 disease. It sounds risky, but the procedure is so routine that the chance of anything going wrong is slender. Tens of thousands of people with Parkinson鈥檚 have had it done, for a therapy called deep brain stimulation (DBS). For most, it is a life-changing operation.
When DBS was being developed for Parkinson鈥檚, people speculated about its potential for treating other neurological diseases, or even as a brain enhancement for healthy people. At the same time, there were warnings about overreach. More than a decade ago 快猫短视频 quoted the developer of the technique, Alim-Louis Benabid of Grenoble University Hospital in France, as saying: 鈥淭here is a risk of overuse and mispractice. I鈥檓 aware of that 鈥� and quite frightened.鈥� (24 July 2004, p 40). That future has now arrived. It isn鈥檛 exactly frightening, but there is more than a hint of overuse.
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On the plus side, DBS has been used to alleviate the symptoms of Alzheimer鈥檚 and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and reset the metabolism of people with obesity. However, as the recent failure of two large clinical trials of DBS for depression attests, for disorders other than Parkinson鈥檚 it is still very much in the experimental stages (see 鈥�People with Parkinson鈥檚 walk again after promising drug trial鈥�). We still don鈥檛 even really know why it alleviates Parkinson鈥檚 symptoms, or why it causes some rather strange side effects.
The failure probably spells the end for some of the more medically and ethically dubious uses of DBS, such as to control the sexual urges of paedophiles.
It would be a shame, however, if the failures close off what is still an interesting avenue for treating depression. The World Health Organization rates it as the globe鈥檚 leading cause of disability, and its burden is on the rise.
There were some promising early results in depression. It is surely time for DBS researchers to take stock, dust themselves down and try again.
Read more: 鈥�Deep brain stimulation: A wonder treatment pushed too far?鈥�
(Image: Phanie/Alamy)
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淒eep trouble?鈥�
