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A Brain Pacemaker for Depression
Ranger writes "Scientists claim to have developed a
pacemaker 'cure' for depression. It may also have applications to controlling tremor's in Parkison' sufferers. This sounds vaguely like Ren & Stimpy's Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy helmet from
Stimpy's Invention."
(A Tasp is a device that lets one remotely tickle someone else's brain pleasure center. It's illegal, of course, since very often, the victim, after a moment of pure joy, is bound to get depressed and eventually becomes a wirehead, by having a wire to the pleasure center surgically implanted, then getting high on house current [presumably transformed down to a managable voltage/current] and avoiding normal sundry chores like working, washing-up and eventually eating).
Such a device already exists, and is used by hundreds of thousands of geeks across the globe!
Bored at work. Bored at work. Getting depressed. Getting depressed.
Oh, new story on Slashdot! Yay! Something to do. Happy! Happy!
Ok. Read story. Not so good after all. Bored at work. Bored at work. Getting depressed. Getting depressed.
Oh, new story on Slashdot! Yay! Something to do. Happy! Happy!
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
A dupe from almost a year ago.
This reminds me a little bit of an article I read a little while back on a spinal cord stimulation device which has been dubbed the "Orgasmatron."
Article link
Snippet:
While Dr. Stuart Meloy was working on a new device to treat chronic pain, he was surprised to discover it could also bring pleasure to his female patients.
While Meloy, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in Winston-Salem, was putting an electrode into the spine of a female patient with chronic back pain, the woman reported a decrease in her pain and a delightful, but very unexpected, side effect.
"When we turned on the power in this case, she let out a moan and began hyperventilating," Meloy said on ABC News' Good Morning America. "Of course we cut the power and I looked around the drapes and asked her what was going on. Once she caught her breath, she said 'you're gonna have to teach my husband how to do that!' "
Meloy soon realized he may have discovered a device that could help thousands of women who have trouble achieving orgasm.
"The device is the use of a pre-existing device called a spinal cord stimulator," he said. "Instead of treating chronic pain with the stimulator, we're treating orgasmic dysfunction," Meloy said.
In a surgical procedure done in his office, Meloy implants the electrodes from this device into the back of the patient, at the bottom part of the spinal cord. When the electrodes are stimulated with a remote control, the brain interprets the signal as an orgasm, he said. The device is about the size of a pacemaker and can be turned on and off with a handheld remote control.
What else will this do, other then 'cure' depression?
Moving a person with such a condition onto another planet where everything's perfect might help them feel better. Or not. People with a built-in capacity for depression can get depressed -- even suicidal -- over things that most people wouldn't even notice.
Thing is, the word "depression" doesn't really explain anything. It's just a handy label for a wide variety of conditions, some fairly well understood, others hardly understood at all. So it ends up being a dumping bin for any condition with mostly psychological symptoms that a doctor can't explain through physical disease. So really depression is "diagnosed" only by elimination -- and it often happens that the doctor has not eliminated all other possibilities.
While there are certainly people who are clearly depressed, most people I know who are on anti-depressants are perfectly normal. They mistake the occasional lack of motivation or bad day for depression, and it seems doctors love to write prescriptions for antidepressants with little or no questioning if they are needed (kickbacks?). My frame of comparison for "normal" is a person I know who is truly bipolar (it's unmistakable, and medication is necessary).
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
My grandfather just had this done as a treatment for Parkinsons. He can no longer write nor drink out of a cup without a straw because of the trembling.
He had to have three surgeries total. Two were to implant the brain stimulators. One week they drilled the left side, the next week they drilled the right side. The third week they implanted the "pace maker / battery pack" into his back.
He has not yet had the device activated. The doctors make him wait about a month for the injuries from the surgeries to heal. They do test the implants immediately after the drilling and implants. In case you did not notice from the article it is a "Local' anethesia, which for those of you out there not paying attention, means they drill into your head while you are awake.
That part sucks big time, but it is needed because they count on feed-back from the patient to make sure the electrodes are placed properly within the brain.
Anyway, he has not yet had the device turned on for every day use. His healing period was delayed when he got pnuemonia. He is getting anxious to have the device activated. He said the other people who have had this procedure have greatly improved, almost immediately.
How it works for depression I don't know, but it is already being used for Parkinsons.
-MS2k
Ok, nice rant. Not terribly informative or informed, but definitly a rant.
First off, why the assumption that people who are suffering from depression don't think. That they are hiding from the big scary reality under their beds.
I can only speak for myself here, unlike some of you who have the uncanny ability to know what others are thinking, but I do think. I think there for I am... I think you think so I'll give you the benifit of the doubt on the question of existence.
In fact there are times that I seem to think too much. Again I can't speak to what others are thinking, but when I can analize my reasons for doing things and others just shrug when asked why they did something stupid, mean or self-defeating I figure I am thinking as much or more than my generally happy friends and aquaintances.
As for the bit about everyone wanting a pill to fix things, you make it sound like anti-depressants are happy pills. When is the last time some dealer offered you an SSRI on the street? They don't make you happy. They make me fart, but thats not a marketable side-effect
Depression is not 'getting depressed'. I wish I could say I get depressed because that would imply that sometime in my life that I can remember I wasn't depressed. Everyone has shitty days, or weeks. Feeling crappy about crappy things is not depression. It can lead to depression but for most thats a temporary condition. Mom died? Find you're unhappy, moody, lost your appetite and don't want to get out of bed? Yes, you're probably depressed. Yes it will probably go away without medication. Therapy may help, but then again so will time.
However when pleasurable experiences give you no pleasure, when even a minor setback can send you into a mood which is negative completly out of proportion, or a major one can have no effect, when you lack the physical energy and the mental capacity to even seek out pleasure, forget happiness, it is not going to be helped by reading a little Nietzsche (though I must have missed reading his real cheery works.)
The happy pills you speak of don't make me happy. They don't even make me normal, though apparently they do for some people. They do however allow me to function enough to keep a job, go shopping, take care of my kids. This is something that for several years I was incapable of doing.
Anyway, as for your great advice, I did all that. In my teens. Didn't work. 20 years later I'm still depressed. But thanks for playing.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible -W.B.