FDA OKs Brain Pacemaker for Depression

Duke Machesne writes "On Friday, the FDA approved a new therapy for the severely depressed who have run out of treatment options: a pacemaker-like implant that sends tiny electric shocks to the brain. The Food and Drug Administration's clearance opens Cyberonics Inc.'s vagus nerve stimulator, or VNS, as a potential treatment for an estimated 4 million Americans with hard-to-treat depression - despite controversy over whether it's really been proven to work."

Comments

The Terminal Man

[Gothmolly]

let the numerous tinfoil hat references begin!

Re:The Terminal Man

[sanosuke001]

Yeah, I read the book and it didn't seem like it worked too well then....

Re:The Terminal Man

[sanosuke001]

Yeah, I read The Terminal Man and it didn't seem like it worked too well then.... though I heard about some rats with an electrode attached to the "pleasure center" of their brains and everytime they hit a switch, they would get a shock. Needless to say, the rats died of heart attacks, I believe. Good way to go if you ask me.

Re:The Terminal Man

[Anonymous Coward]

funny, that was my first reaction when i read this too. that book scared the crap out of me when i read it 15 years ago... and now it begins :-D

Re:The Terminal Man

[Bellum Aeternus]

Dude, you're gonna need more than a tinfoil hat for this one!

Re:The Terminal Man

[Anonymous Coward]

If you RTFB you may remember that it DID work but it "felt good" when the shock was administered and the patient had full control over it!

Seems like a great Borg addition for all you one handed web surfing typest out there. You could type porn url's twice as fast!

Re:The Terminal Man

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe that more than 1% of the US population has hard to treat depression (4 million > 1% of 300 million). Who is tooting this horn to push an agenda?

IMO, most people (certainly not all) who have 'depression' are either lazy (extremely common), heavily invested in a dead-end career (very comon), have a shitty family (fairly common), or hypochondriacs (also common).

I cite: runaway obesity rates, tremendous school debt and high rates of career changes from jobs relevant to the degree, the high divorce rate, and the general populous of people who want to feel special by getting unnecessary medical treatment.

For most people with 'depression', admit you fucked up earlier in your life and take the steps to change what it takes to be happier (sans criminal acts, of course). Often this is as simple as simplifying things: accept a lower paying job with less responsibility, get rid of excess belongings in your home, cancel that cable subscription (sorry more FOX "News"), play less video games, spend more time outdoors, etc.

Re:The Terminal Man

[kopo]

Huh, that was the first thing I thought of, too.

Re:The Terminal Man

[Jaysyn]

I'd much rather take MDMA then put a fucking bug zapper in my head.

Re:The Terminal Man

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd much rather take MDMA then put a fucking bug zapper in my head.

You fucking hippie fag. I'll take all the electronics that they can shove in my skull! I especially want a port in the back of my neck where I can plug in an RJ-45 jack. Then maybe I could have like TCPDump output scrolling across my eyes, something cool like that. Hells yeah.

Re:The Terminal Man

[Anonymous Coward]

"IMO, most people (certainly not all) who have 'depression' are either lazy (extremely common), heavily invested in a dead-end career (very comon), have a shitty family (fairly common), or hypochondriacs (also common)."

Maybe those are the symptoms instead of the causes. People with low self esteem might have a hard time believing they can get a better than dead end career. Depressed people might find anyone who'll show affection for them and accept that even if the person is really a lousy spouse. Lazyness might also be a symptom of depression, depressed people are known to sleep more and have less motivation to do things.

Hypochondria I'll give you though, there is no way I can imagine that being a symptom of depression (which isn't to say it isn't possible, I'm just not going to even go there).

Similar to Parkinson's?

[Trixter]

First post! (Always wanted to say that) But in reality, isn't this the same treatment for severe cases of Parkinson's? Have those patients shown mood changes as well?

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[Jeffrey Baker]

I don't know about parkinson's, but the same device is used to treat severe epilepsy.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

isn't this the same treatment for severe cases of Parkinson's?

No, the device you're thinking of is the thalamic stimulator. It's implanted in the brain, with the patient conscious, and I read somewhere that the results are dramatic, so much so that surgeon looks at the patient's hand, probes on the thalamus with the electrode to find the right spot, and when he finds it, the shaking instantly stops. I hear when the implant is in place and working, the only reminder of Parkinson's disease left is slowness of movements, but no more tremors.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I remember of my University psychology course, ECT was originally used to treat schizophrenia by inducing an epileptic seizure after it was noticed that schizophrenia and epilepsy seldom occured in the same patients.

ECT has subsequently been used as a last ditch treatment for severe, otherwise untreatable depression. It's so effective that patients often want to undergo the same treatment if their depression returns.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[venicebeach]

Yes, what the grandparent is probably thinking of is a deep brain stimulator, where an electrical device delivers stimulation directly to the brain, usually in the thalamus or globus pallidus. A vagus nerve stimulator is not implanted in the brain, it's implanted in the chest and stimulates the vagus nerve, which is a peripheral nerve that carries sensory information to the brain from the viscera.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[murch]

Everyone knows that the most effective treatment for Parkinson's is a 90 lb. lead hat. (with apologies to lil' Jimmy...)

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[BioCS.Nerd]

Perhaps you are correct, but I'd like to point you to the third paragraph of TFA:

The pacemaker-like implant has been sold since 1997 to control intractable epilepsy, a much smaller market.

If perchance you happen to be more in the know than I am on the subject (which wouldn't be very difficult), perhaps you wouldn't mind enlightening the curious as to the difference between the two?

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

If perchance you happen to be more in the know than I am on the subject

I don't know much about it, but my understanding is that the epilepsy stimulator acts on the vagus nerve, which is in the neck. The thalamic implant acts on the thalamus, which is a rice-grain-sized mass of neurons deep inside the brain. The electrodes of the former are implanted in the neck, whereas the electrodes of the latter are implanted inside the brain, through trepanation.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[aardvaark]

You are partially incorrect. I don't know about the stimulator thingy you are talking about, but vagal nerve stimulation IS used to treat parkinson's.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[scottv67]

It's so effective that patients often want to undergo the same treatment if their depression returns.

Unless you have first-hand experience or can provide links to reputable medical sources, I call bullshit.

Never use "ECT" and "effective" in the same sentence.

Anyone who would "agree" to ECT twice probably doesn't have enough brain left to decide what is best for themselves.

I hope I live long enough to see ECT made illegal. It's this generation's "eugenics". That practice was legal at one time. But once the Nazis adopted it, it quickly became taboo. I hope something similar happens with ECT. It would be a very good thing if the only way our grandchildren found out about ECT was in their medical history books.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[texas neuron]

Just to provide some background for readers. The vagus nerve stimulator is implanted in the chest and has wires that leads to the left vagus nerve at the neck. The left vagus nerve was chosen because it was felt to be less likely to affect the heart rate. The device is programmed to deliver impulses on a fixed timing system (30 seconds on, 5 minutes off is one common setting). When used in epilepsy, a second program can be activated by a magnet to stop the seizure when it has already started either by the patient or by a family member. How the device prevents seizures is not clear. During a seizure it probably works by helping to desyncronize the cells of the brain. It is groups of cells firing improperly together that creates the seizure. More on the VNS can be read on my web site here. Physicians treating epilepsy patients noticed mood improvements and the studies to look at depressed patients were started.

Because of the high cost of the device (cost of device, implantation, and programming) the studies in depression have been limited to those patients who have been resistant to multiple depression treatments. That is why when it was approved by the FDA, the patients it was approved for was also limited to this group. This group of patients, are, however, often hospitalized and therefore this treatment could prove to be cost effective. Since psychiatry is not my specialty, neurology is, I have not kept up as much with its use in this area.

The deep brain stimulator is located in the chest and it wire connect to a lead that is placed in different places within the brain depending on the condition being treated. The most common diseases treated with this device is Parkinson's disease and severe essential tremor. Most patients require 2 of these devices (one for the left brain and the other for the right brain) The device is quite effective and greatly improves the quality of life of these patients. In the case of Parkinson's disease, the disease unfortunately continues to progress.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[cluckshot]

First as an RN who has been present (not treated but watching and post TX caregiver) for ECT. It is a horrid failure. However some vagal nerve stimulation might be of some value. It could hardly be less effective than most of the so called treatments of today. SO MOD this parent up those of you who are mods! If you don't like this post get a life mods!

The FDA studies on this reveal the treatment is of very little if any value. So that makes it light years ahead of the various MAO non-MAO etc Tri-... etc treatments which in a matter of months or years leave the person with a whole complex of debilitating neurologic damage which is perminant or Prozac types which make the person likely to become homicidal and suicidal in too many cases etc. With this all said... I have a strange suggestion for this device. It probably if placed correctly would be an effective treatment for Sleep Apnea.

Heads up you research types. Sleep Apnea represents a suppressor signal in the brain which normally applies to suppressing voluntary activities that has become misdirected to the suppression of the muscle tension in the upper airway and to varous respiratory control centers. This is a candidate begging for this type of treatment.

I have sleep apnea. I know. I have no trouble sustaining my breathing pattern or airway conditions until I fall asleep. CPAP may hold the area open but it would be much nicer to have a little nerve stimulator implanted and have it detect the lack of a signal and to supply it locally.

The good news here is that the FDA when it allows such a device allows it out and it can be applied "off Label" so this can get going now. I am sure that other good uses of such devices exist. Depression however is probably the least likely to apply.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[TummyX]

but vagal nerve stimulation IS used to treat parkinson's


Not to be confused with vaginal nerve stimulation which IS also used to treat parkinson's. Some say it's even easier with parkinson's.

/goingtohell

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[Fulg0re-]

ECT is horrible, I agree. I cannot even imagine how it was before the days of having muscle relaxants! Remember though, it is only suggested refractory to other treatments. I personally believe that NSRIs (eg: Effexor) along with cognitive therapy are the best course of treatment at the moment.

About the sleep apnea. Makes sense. They did, however, encounter patients who have horseness of breath which suggests that the recurrent laryngeals (branches of the vagus which supply the intrinsic muslces of the larynx except the cricothyroid) are getting too much stimulation. You're right though, perhaps with some tweaking, it could be made to work.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[cohomology]

Excuse me, you seem to making extreme, unsupported statements. As an RN, you have an obligation to the public to prosent well-supported medical information.

What "debilitating neurological damage" is caused by MAO-inhibitors (or tricyclics, or SSRIs or ...)? Are you actually referring to the possible consequences (high blood pressure, possibly causing stroke) caused by the interaction between MAO inhibitors and certain foods? If so, the readers need to know they are easy to avoid. If not, what are you talking about?

What "homicidal or suicidal" behaviour are you attributing to Prozac? Do you mean the elevated rate of suicide in children that has been reported? Do you have any idea whether the risk is high or low? Have you considered that depression itself can be a fatal illness, so a treatment with risks may be acceptable, with proper monitoring?

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[cluckshot]

Just a proper response to this and, no mods, no ideology here just info....

The requested data on debilitating neurologic damage is all there if you wish to dig into the Nursing Texts. Nobody has time on /. for this kind of denial or data. So lets just be polite and let you look up a few bits of data on Tardive Dyskinesia . Be sure to crank up your search engine on the various drugs used to treat and I noted the general classes.

I long ago found that those who demanded such proof usually don't accept it when presented. Regards to the Zoloft, Prozac etc class of stuff the data is coming up everywhere to the point that the FDA is starting to have to take note. The black box warnings are starting to show up! About 20 years late! Just for the record if you go to the PDR (An advertizement by the drug company) and look up Ritalin, Prozac and several other drugs you will get a real eye full when you take a look at if the drug is effective in children and when you read the warnings. Go ahead if you dare. You may find that as an RN one is a patient advocate and yes I am well supported and yes I have personal clinical experience with this and non-clinical experience. A fellow RN was MURDERED by her son who was on this crap trip passed off by these "Legal" drug pushers who lie a lot. So was her husband! One of their children was murdered and two others were badly hurt. NAMES: YES! Jeffrey Franklin in Huntsville, Alabama was the Murderer. This came out in the court cases and it came out in family lawsuits that succeded in supporting the two badly hurt kids for the rest of their lives. The companies involved had such a damning case against them that they settled out of court eventually in order to hide their guilt.

The specific routes and conditions of damage are well documented. As an RN having to administer such drugs I had to daily document for the side effects that you question if they exist. This is in the extreme level of documentation required by law.

Re:Similar to Parkinson's?

[cohomology]

Thanks for your reply. We can continue by email at anyname AT tincansandstring.net if you wish.

I am familiar with Tardive Dyskinesia: it is associated with neuroleptics, which are not the drugs we are discussing. I am discussing the anti-depressant drugs I named.

I am also a patient advocate, possibly in a less formal way than you, but I interpret accounts of adverse effects differently than you do. I also consider the severity of the illness and the available alternatives.

I've read sections of the PDR on these drugs. I agree that the use of these drugs in children is questionable. But you dismissed them all without qualification, and I felt that was a disservice to the public.

Shockings will continue...

[jarich]

Shockings will continue until morale improves!

Re:Shockings will continue...

[PsychicX]

It reminds me of the sort of items you inevitably get in games like SW: Knights of the Old Republic. "This implant gives the user repeated neural shocks to reduce the ability to feel pain and to increase motivation, with the net effect of giving +2 to Will Saves."

Re:Shockings will continue...

[Alien54]

Borrowed from the internet

I keep hearing authorities on public radio applying logic to who and what we are that, if applied to a TV set, might run as follows: Though tradition claims that there is life beyond this TV set, a life that continues after its demise --actual living beings who create these moving pictures, the TV set being only a means of presenting them to others --we know, scientifically, that this cannot be the case. Here is the evidence:

1. Obviously, nothing of the life you see on a TV set can survive the demise of the TV set. Proof: destroy a TV set. It contains no more life, nor ever will again.
2. Evidence is mounting that the TV set is the SOURCE of the pictures you see on its screen. They are all created within the "brain" of the TV set. For example, if you sever this wire, the pictures vanish. If you sever THIS one, the picture lose their vertical hold. If you cut THAT one, they lose horizontal hold. If you destroy that part, they fade. If you destroy THAT part, the sound vanishes. And so forth. By disabling one or another component to see what it controls, scientists, daily, are clarifying the ways in which the various parts of the TV set contribute to the creation of its pictures. (Tube or not tube?)
3. Where sets are faulty (electrical brain imbalances), we can't cure them, but we CAN keep them operating. For example, when we jolt this set by attaching a power line to this part here, we don't get the correct picture back, but notice how the screen flares up, all brilliant white? See? We can keep it happy.

Now imagine this with a computer.

Re:Shockings will continue...

[mog007]

This sounds ominous, like the plot from a book I read a few months ago called The Terminal Man. Same author who did Sphere, but it was about a guy who got an implant to help him battle severe seizures that caused him to kill somebody. Eventually he trained himself to make the seizures happen at will, and caused a brief stimulation of his pleasure centers.

He broke out of the hospital and went on a kill rampage because the shocks started becoming too frequant for the implant to work, so he'd cause a seizure that wouldn't get counteracted by the implant. Was a cool story.

Re:Shockings will continue...

[Nikker]

Glad to see Pinkys contributions to science have been recodnized ....

Re:Shockings will continue...

[bcrowell]

Overclocking voids your warranty, but with the appropriate case mod to allow for external cooling, it can be done.

Re:Shockings will continue...

[iShaman]

Oh man, you're not joking!

Isn't this how Scientology works?!? I haven't RTFA, but my first impression is it sounds just like an e-meter used in one of those Dianetics auditing sessions.

{do I have to, like, watch my back now?}

Re:Shockings will continue...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they have nothing more than an ohm meter attached to your skin, measures conductivity which changes due to your sweat level.
I for one am posting anonymously on this off topic comment, you Don't want to be in the sights of the Scientology fanatics...

Re:Shockings will continue...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Republic troops call it "Little Shocky"

Re:Shockings will continue...

[darklordyoda]

Warning: Do Not Think Near Microwave Ovens

Re:Shockings will continue...

[LifesABeach]

I can't help but wonder if its from living in a 'Blue' state. Does Blockbuster carry a DVD copy of the 'Terminal Man'?

Re:Shockings will continue...

[pcmanjon]

" This sounds ominous, like the plot from a book I read a few months ago called The Terminal Man"

Yes, I read that book a month or two ago. It was crazy. The man was a computer engineer and he believed that Machines were taking over. When he got the implant his phsycotic nature only got worse.

A really good book -- hopefully they won't use a "pleasure" implant to disrupt the depression here?

Re:Shockings will continue...

[Captain Nitpick]

This sounds ominous, like the plot from a book I read a few months ago called The Terminal Man. Same author who did Sphere...

You mean Michael Crichton, perhaps best known for Jurassic Park?

Re:Shockings will continue...

[ppanon]

I'll start believing that analogy the day you start living (i.e. completely/nutritionally sustained from the world) inside your TV set/computer, or the day you explain how to flip the channel on reality well enough that I can do it. Until then, I'll stick to living in my perception of reality and trying to improve that instead of hoping for a hypothetical afterlife to make things better.

Re:Shockings will continue...

[Alien54]

living inside a computer is too cramped for me. I prefer something like the Hawaiin islands, for example.

Bah

[Umbral Blot]

I wouldn't trust it. My room/cell mate had one and it didn't seem to do him any good, although his was for treating epilepsy.

I for one...

[laughing rabbit]

...welcome our new micro-electric shock therapy overlords.

Re:I for one...

[3nd32]

But does it make me run Linux?

Oh wow

[DrMrLordX]

Imagine if someone with one of these devices stands downwind of the military's (relatively) new microwave riot-control gun. Woooeee. Should be interesting. Of course, I guess that applies to traditional cardiac pacemakers as well. Best not riot, Mr. Cheney.

Re:Oh wow

[Verteiron]

Seeing as how the riot-control beam doesn't penetrate more than skin deep, there shouldn't be a problem unless this uses an external battery pack or something.

Zap, wow that feels good.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it cures depression, what is stopping it from doing the opposite. Could this be a new friendly "happy" drug?

Re:Zap, wow that feels good.

[VATechTigger]

Same thing that keeps people from abusing Antidepressants. They dont get you high, or super happy. You get fever, twitches, respitory distress etc from to much serotonin AKA "Seratonin Syndrome"

Re:Zap, wow that feels good.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Personally, when I feel down, I remember the old adages: a gramme in time saves nine. Not to mention, a gramme is better than a damn.

Isn't it great to be an epsilon minus? We even have our own dedicated chatboard, Slashdot, to share our experiences.

Re:Zap, wow that feels good.

[ThosLives]

Like one of the other responders to this hinted at: what's to prevent similar things from being used for other "emotional conditions"?

What happens when/if they find the chemical imbalance that is related to hate? Love? Apathy? Compassion? Obedience? After all, depression is an emotional state as much as these other things. So what happens when someone thinks they can "cure" those things as well?

I'm of the opinion that there are other ways to deal with emotional problems than chemical (or electrochemical, as the case may be) treatments. I admit that I haven't done anything to look into those fields (I'm more into thermo- and electro-mechanical machinery and its control apparatus). The most dangerous aspect I see out of all this is further erosion of the importance of personal responsibility. Now it's "the chemical imbalance caused it" or "the implant to fix the chemical imbalance caused it". What happens when we're no longer responsible for our own actions: the opposite of freedom.

Re:Zap, wow that feels good.

[__aamcgs2220]

I don't know if I'd call it "friendly." Let's see here, with pills, all you have to do is pop it in your mouth and swallow. With this one, they have to CUT YOUR CHEST AND NECK OPEN AND ATTACH WIRES TO YOUR NERVES!!! Doesn't sound that friendly to me. Then again, I don't know who your friends are...

Re:Zap, wow that feels good.

[mutterc]

Depends on the problems. Depression is something that easily feeds on itself, taking you in a feedback loop / downwards spiral.

The generally accepted "best" treatment for depression (AFAIK) is to use antidepressants to "lift the fog". This gets you into a state where you aren't so despondent that you won't bother trying to get better. (BTDT) Then, you go to therapy, working on the core issues that were keeping you depressed (e.g. anxiety about your ability to cope with shifts in the economy, to pick a totally random example).

Once those issues are more or less under control, you wean off of the drugs, and go on about your life (keeping an eye out for relapses, and trying to ward them off using your newfound coping techniques, before you become suicidal).

I want my tasp!

[darkgumby]

Wuhoo! Now I can be a wirehead with FDA approval.

Sounds like the Happy Helmet!

[XxtraLarGe]

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy, Joy!

Re:Sounds like the Happy Helmet!

[XxtraLarGe]

Reference for the previous post

Re:Sounds like the Happy Helmet!

[bedroll]

Hello, boys and girls. This is your old pal, Stinky Wizzleteats..
A better reference:

Stimpy's Invention
Stimpy invents lots of silly things and has Ren try them out. Ren is not happy with these inventions, so Stimpy makes a "Happy Helmet" to make sure Ren is never unhappy again. The result is even more psychotic than "Space Madness." Includes the now-famous "Happy Happy Joy Joy" song.

Re:Sounds like the Happy Helmet!

[Panaphonix]

Stimpy: Ren... I've got a surpriiiise for you! Come out come out, wherever you are! ... Hey... Maybe Ren is somewhere being sad!
I will make him happy again! *Bzzz*

Depression!?!

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

Fuck that! I want something that keeps me feeling real good! Also, I want somethint that make me hyper -productive so I can make a $1,000,000/ week for a month or two so that I can retire next year!

Mr. Huxley, here I come!

Re:Depression!?!

[BioCS.Nerd]

Well, that's exactly what they're hoping this device will do: send signals through the Vagus nerve to help regulate portions of the brain involved in mood to "...keep [you] feeling real good!" See here for more information. AFAIK this would be painless if that's what you're worried about.

I'm pretty sure that for someone with extreme, darn near conventionally untreatable depression that such a device will help them become (relatively) "hyper-productive".

just imagine...

[Paladin144]

Just imagine if you got one of these things implanted in your brain and it didn't work at all - that would be extremely depressing. :-)

Re:just imagine...

[linzeal]

That is why they should legalize heroin and marijuana so you can make anyone happy.

Re:just imagine...

[Rubidium]

The problem is that neither of these drugs are in practice suitable here. Heroin has too much risk associated with it, even if pharmaceutical-grade and not injected, because the overall effect it produced is too context dependent (which means that people often overdose if they take a dose that they're normally used to, but take it in an unfamiliar environment). Furthermore, heroin makes you more lethargic, not less lethargic, which would definitely be a problem in the case of individuals with depression, as lethargy is one thing that very regularly is a significant part of it. As for marijuana, it can often produce (sometimes quite severe) anxiety and paranoia, especially in individuals who already have preexisting psychological problems. Even though depression itself may not necessary predispose one that much to getting very bad reactions from marijuana, depression is very often comorbid with things like anxiety disorders and like, which aren't necessary diagnosed per se (but that doesn't mean that they aren't there), and anxiety disorders very significantly predispose one to having very adverse reactions to marijuana. And likewise, marijuana is likely to make one more lethargic rather than less, which would not be exactly helpful for individuals with depression.

Re:just imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, if it worked as advertised, it'd be just as depressing.

Terminal Man

[Evil Adrian]

Michael Crichton sort of covered this in his book Terminal Man... the guy gets electrical current run into his brain when he starts getting blacking out and becoming violent...

Great book. Read it.

Re:Terminal Man

[Omg Kthxbye]

YES! You beat me to it! Excellent book, as are all of his others. I thought of the book immediately when I read this story.

Re:Terminal Man

[sanosuke001]

Yeah, I did as well. As did the previous two parent posts about this book. (Which I replied to instead of starting my own post) Please read posts beforehand (or do a find) before posting on a certain topic :/

Re:Terminal Man

[Nefarious Wheel]

Also Andromeda Strain, one of the first decent SF films to feature a computer that wasn't a talking card sorter.

Re:Terminal Man

[Evil Adrian]

Mine was the second comment re: Terminal Man. The first one got posted less than 2 minutes before mine, when I was in the middle of writing my comment.

I guess I should have done a find first.

and of course the obligatory

[Victor Tramp]

*BZZT*

Vagus baby, YEAA!!

Why not hook up something to the brain implant?

[RedLaggedTeut]

Why not hook up another sense to the brain implant instead of random impulses?

How about sonar or ultraviolet vision? Or hooking up an internet connection :-)

Re:Why not hook up something to the brain implant?

[Andronoid]

Because randomly stimulating a single nerve tract to cause the release of neuro -ransmitters is easy while the more precise stimulation needed for perception is very hard (and almost not at all understood). For those unfamiliar with neuro-anatomy the vagus nerve goes throughout the body and (primarily) picks up signals on heart rate etc. that are associate with an increased level of arousal. This nerve projects (again primarily) to the amygdala the brains "emotional center" so your brain knows your scared, excited, elated or any other state of high arousal (because often your body reacts before your brain does, altough this is a simplistic explanation) So all this device seems to do is cause a higher level of arousal. It doesn't seem to do much more than current drugs already do, except maybe that the level of control is more precise than just popping a pill.

*sigh*

[mE123]

I'm sure there is something snappy I could say here... but I'm really not in to it today...

I think I'm going to go back to bed

Re:*sigh*

[d34thm0nk3y]

This sounds like a job for Bipolar Bear!...but I just can't seem to get out of bed this month.

Re:*sigh*

[halivar]

I'm sure there is something snappy I could say here... but I'm really not in to it today...

I think I'm going to go back to bed

Careful. Don't be too unhappy or you get the implant.

What could possibly go wrong with this?

[Mister Transistor]

For the answer, read or watch Michael Crichton's "The Terminal Man". One of his better stories, from about 30 years ago.

Re:What could possibly go wrong with this?

[Pxtl]

Niven played with this concept a lot too, it appears in an extreme form in many of his novels and short stories. For example, in the Gil Hamilton detective stories, a man is killed by being hooked up to such an ecstacy device through a cord too short to allow him to reach the kitchen, so he starves to death rather than disconnect the device (much of the story debates whether or not this was a suicide).

Personally, I like Niven's writing better than Crichton's.

Re:What could possibly go wrong with this?

[Enigma_Man]

Ditto here on the Niven vs. Crichton, but Crichton's Terminal-Man was a really good read nonetheless.

-Jesse

Re:What could possibly go wrong with this?

[i.r.id10t]

Spider Robinson did a similar themed story once too, 2 books that got merged into one. Deathkiller (and Mindkiller too I think)

Re:What could possibly go wrong with this?

[Reality Master 101]

Niven has a good imagination, but he wouldn't know a character if the cardboard wacked him in the face.

(Not that Crichton's are that much better, but they are better)

Re:What could possibly go wrong with this?

[geek.exe]

Thank you. No one else thought of this when they heard about it?

Re:What could possibly go wrong with this?

[Mister Transistor]

"I wish I had said that!"

"You will, Oscar, you will..."

(Oscar Wilde talking to Percy Shelly, from a Monty Python sketch)

Re:What could possibly go wrong with this?

[arkanes]

The pleasure button has been a staple of sci-fi and cyberpunk for pretty much as long as both genres have existed. I think they don't even let you in the club unless you've written a story based on one.

Re:What could possibly go wrong with this?

[pongo000]

Does the Orgasmatron count too?

Happy Hat is real?

[amigabill]

So, the Happy Hat from Ren & Stimpy has finally left the cartoon world? Cool!

Re:Happy Hat is real?

[Quiet_Desperation]

You sick little monkey!

Ah, good times. :)

Re:Happy Hat is real?

[mbrewthx]

1) Develop Happy Hat
2) Convince outside corp to produce and market
3) ???
4) Profit
5) OOps
6) Start again tomorrow night

Welcome to the Monkey House

[jdehnert]

Can you say Harrison Bergeron? I though you could.

Re:Welcome to the Monkey House

[rsborg]

Can you say Harrison Bergeron? I though you could.

The Handicapper General would like to remind you of your required "equality" education ...

Re:Welcome to the Monkey House

[TrippTDF]

I kinda agree with you here.

I'm a depressed person. While I've not been officially diagnosed, I think the recent suicide attempts have proven that.

Now, I don't fucking want help. I rather like being this far below the average person. It's easier down here. No one understands that, and I'm expected to "get better" so that my friends and family will "feel better" about me.

Why does depression have to be cured?

Re:Welcome to the Monkey House

[Dogtanian]

I'm a depressed person. While I've not been officially diagnosed, I think the recent suicide attempts have proven that.

I'm not sure how much they "prove" at all, except that you want them to "prove" something.

Now, I don't fucking want help. I rather like being this far below the average person. It's easier down here. No one understands that, and I'm expected to "get better" so that my friends and family will "feel better" about me.

No, you're just a self-indulgent kid who wants to exploit some of your alienation and loneliness to make yourself feel better than everyone else.

Depression isn't fun, and it doesn't make most people cool or interesting.

It's like having a damn weight round your neck, slowing you down, and the more you slow down, the more weight gets added. It's being surrounded by a fog such that you can't even see what "normal" is, destroying your motivation further, because you can't see that making the effort to work your way out of the depressive rut your in will get you anywhere worthwhile. So you do nothing and it gets worse.

That's not to say that I'd want to be a blindly optimistic person; being less than blindly happy can be a good thing and stop you being a brain-dead zealot. The experience, I'd guess, could be used for constructive purposes.

But depression is not fun, it's not interesting, in fact it's bloody boring and (real depression) is just as likely to turn you into a boring person to be with as it is to make you a poetic genius (which requires some motivation, in short supply).

It needs some will-power to actually say "fuck it, this does not apply to my life", externalise your depression and frankly to not indulge it.

Why does depression have to be cured?

I'm very sceptical that it *should* be "cured" in the way that many would like it to be. Yeah, pop your angsty teen some pills when they start feeling less than satisfied with your messed up, materialistic values, stick something in their head, yadda yadda.... sometimes it's a natural reaction to the environment someone's in, and "curing" it with science is frankly loathesome.

And on the other hand, the boring, unfashionable, (but very destructive) drizzly fog-like depression that some people have is just likely to be unbearable, and my guess is that anyone depressed to that extent (I've never been that bad, but I can at least imagine it) would not ask "why does depression have to be cured?".

Re:Welcome to the Monkey House

[blincoln]

Now, I don't fucking want help. I rather like being this far below the average person. It's easier down here. No one understands that, and I'm expected to "get better" so that my friends and family will "feel better" about me.

If it's so great, then why are the people around you able to tell that something is wrong?

Re:Welcome to the Monkey House

[mutterc]

(IHBT?)

The downwards spiral associated with depression can be terribly corrosive to your soul, and you might not even realize it until trying treatment.

It could be hard to hold down a job:

• You see through management's BS, and call them on it regularly (rather than exercising a bit of denial, as others do). This makes them hate you.
• Your unshakable faith that the future will suck causes you to not even bother trying at work. That of course becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• You get angry at people who care about their jobs, and alienate everyone. ("So fucking what if the release gets delayed? We'll just start another one then be late on that...")
• You can't get new jobs because your pessimism shines through in interviews. ("Why do you want to work here?" "There's no future in software development, so I need to be looking." "This job is more or less software development." "#&@!$") You also have no "network" because you've alienated everyone.

Of course it's easier to be depressed. When there's no possibility of a positive outcome to anything, you don't need to do anything. The downside is that it might be nice to do something someday (stay married, have kids, lose enough weight to hang-glide, etc. are what I want to do in the near future, now that I'm coming out from under the cloud).

Augmentation

[Tekgno]

So how long will it be until we start seeing products that augment perfectly healthy individuals?

Re:Augmentation

[Verteiron]

Hard to say how long, but this WILL happen. As soon as one country begins to do it, others will have to follow just to keep up. Best we learn how to deal with it now.

The Terminal Man?

[VanillaBabies]

Wasn't there a Michael Crichton book based on a similar premise? Except in the book he learned to control and then started killing people?

All i'm saying is truth is stranger than fiction, and i don't want to be around when the killing starts.

In Addition to the Electrodes

[techsoldaten]

This is a new version of a much older device.

The mjor obstalce scientists have been able to overcome is, when you turn the knob up to 4, you do not experience the symptoms of butt frenzy commonly associated with earlier versions of the device.

M

Louis Wu, where are you

[wbtittle]

This sounds oddly like Ring World Engineers.

Electric current to the pleasure center of the brain....

Let the addictions begin.

Hack it and keep high forever

[guildsolutions]

I wonder how hackable they would be to send 'pleasure' signals... Kinda like a star trekkie thing that keeps your brain in extacy for hours upon hours... That would be the life... who cares about money after that implant.

Seriously, Depression is a dissease that affects almost everyone at some point in our lives. Those who cant be helped with alternative methods could serously benefit from such. Whats needed now is a way to determine if someone is clinincally depressed even if they are denying it. This might have pain and suffering of a local 13 year old who tried to take his own life last winter, but only succeded in making himself worse off.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[haluness]

Seriously, Depression is a dissease that affects almost everyone at some point in our lives. Those who cant be helped with alternative methods could serously benefit from such.

I think the depression that this device is supposed to help is a more serious form that does not affect *everybody at some point*. Yes I've been depressed at times, but then I've been able to get over it without medication.

This is for people whom medication can't help - not for people who got depressed because they forgot to pay a credit card bill

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Seriously, Depression is a dissease that affects almost everyone at some point in our lives.

I think there's a distinction between true depression, which is a chronic weird state one cannot get out of, and that can get one to commit suicide in the worst cases, and "feeling down" or "having the blues", which everybody occasionally has as part of normal life, and which is usually connected to events in life.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[adagioforstrings]

Ah, the Wire.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Dun Malg]

I wonder how hackable they would be to send 'pleasure' signals... Kinda like a star trekkie thing that keeps your brain in extacy for hours upon hours... That would be the life... who cares about money after that implant.

Wouldn't work. Our brains don't measure things from a zero baseline, they do comparisons. Things like "fun", "pleasure", and even "pain" exist only as their requisite stimuli diverge from a running average baseline. In other words, constant stimulation of the pleasure center would fairly quickly become the new baseline, thus essentially rendering direct stimulation of the pleasure center "normal", and anything less than that "unpleasant".

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[yali]

Whats needed now is a way to determine if someone is clinincally depressed even if they are denying it.

Most likely the device will only be used on people with extraordinarily serious depression (psychosis, history of suicide attempts, etc.) for whom other techniques like psychotherapy and drugs have failed. Currently that is the case with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) -- in spite of the popular perception, it's pretty much a last-resort kind of thing, and I'd imagine any treatment involving surgery would be similar. So although there are certainly lots of people with undiagnosed depression, I don't think that will be relevant here.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew someone had to remember Larry Niven..

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Brunellus]

...how does this make it any different from any other drug, then?

I know alcoholics who can't function normally unless they've had a drink...and it has nothing to do with how much they enjoy a drop now and again

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Captain Scurvy]

Not sure about the 'forever' part. You can't have highs without lows, after all.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[hesiod]

> In other words, constant stimulation of the pleasure center would fairly quickly become the new baseline,

Please excuse my ignorance, I haven't taken a biology class since HS, and never anything on neurology, nor psychiatry... If this is true, does it also work in reverse?

I am a relatively depressed person, although I believe it is because of the crappiness of my life, and not chemical imbalances (statistically, if there are people with genuinely "good" lives, there are people with genuinely "bad" ones).

If I am constantly given negative stimuli, would the baseline not drop, making me feel happier in general, even though absolute quality of life remains unchanged?

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[blincoln]

If I am constantly given negative stimuli, would the baseline not drop, making me feel happier in general, even though absolute quality of life remains unchanged?

Yes. In my experience, people still need some sort of external stimulus to turn their mood around, but the requirements for it become less and less stringent the longer they've been down.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[blincoln]

Most likely the device will only be used on people with extraordinarily serious depression (psychosis, history of suicide attempts, etc.)

Nitpick:

Psychosis is a thought disorder. Depression is a mood disorder. Most people with psychosis (as opposed to psychopaths) are not violent toward themselves or others, just confused.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Fred Ferrigno]

Yes. In my experience, people still need some sort of external stimulus to turn their mood around, but the requirements for it become less and less stringent the longer they've been down.

I couldn't disagree more. When my college roommate flunked his midterm, a good TV show and some pizza usually turned his mood around. When my brother got cut from the football team and flunked out of college, he spent most of the next year indoors, despite copious amounts of pizza and TV.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[blincoln]

despite copious amounts of pizza and TV.

Obviously his brain had built up a tolerance to pizza and TV (due to the same effect we're discussing). You should have tried an alternate stimulus, like dancing girls or beer.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Anonymous Coward]

depression + alcohol = more depression + more alcohol

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[yali]

Nitpick returned:

Psychosis is not a disorder in the sense of a separate Axis I category. Rather, it is a loss of contact with reality that can be part of many disorders, including severe depression.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Rubidium]

There is such a thing though as psychotic depression, which is depression that is severe enough to the point that it actually does cause psychotic symptoms, due to the extreme mood states involved, just like how bipolar disorder, another mood disorder, can very often cause psychosis (albeit usually with bipolar disorder psychosis is caused by extremely high moods rather than extremely low moods, as in the case of psychotic depression). Even though depression and bipolar are both mood disorders, they can cause psychotic symptoms in turn, even though such is more common in the case of bipolar than in the case of depression.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Dun Malg]

...how does this make it any different from any other drug, then? I know alcoholics who can't function normally unless they've had a drink...and it has nothing to do with how much they enjoy a drop now and again

Direct stimulation of the pleasure center would, in fact, be just like any other drug. This is a kind of tangential, though, to the device under discussion. I'm not at all sure what the anti-depression shocker thingy does because, like any respectable slashdot reader, I could not be bothered to RTFA.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[neutralstone]

I wonder how hackable they would be to send 'pleasure' signals... Kinda like a star trekkie thing that keeps your brain in extacy for hours upon hours... That would be the life... who cares about money after that implant.

But obviously, amateurishly hacking the vagus nerve is ill-advised.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[blincoln]

Psychosis is not a disorder in the sense of a separate Axis I category. Rather, it is a loss of contact with reality that can be part of many disorders, including severe depression.

Okay, fair enough. I misread your statement "extraordinarily serious depression (psychosis, history of suicide attempts, etc.)" as implying that one of the possible symptoms of psychosis is depression, instead of vice-versa.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Nitpick:

Psychosis is a symptom that can occur during a depressive episode, aswell as a seperate disorder. The way you phrased it, made it sound as if they were mutually exclusive.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Strokke]

*sigh* The term depression is thrown around in today's society with no true knowledge of what it truly is. Almost everybody is affected by having days where they feel bad, don't have any energy, or are just burnt out. That is NOT depression. True depression actually affects approximately 20% of the people in our country at some point in their lives. That is still an extremely high percentage for something so miserable to live through, but its not even close to affecting "almost everyone". Almost the entire public conception of depression is false, including the numbers of people who are affected. Most depression does not occur during puberty, it either usually hits in 20's (What am I going to do with my life?) or in the 40's (What have I done with my life?)

So next time the movie you wanted to see is sold out, don't comment on how depressed it makes you feel because you are insulting the people who have to actually deal with this health condition for years

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Anonymous Coward]

Good God. Chemical highs are illegal, this will be next. And while I am at it, just _what_ are cigarette smokers doing to themselves while on those many smoking breaks that they take each day?
If that's legal, can you say "cigarette tax increase?" The other taxpayers can use the help in funding local and state governments, now that we have increased 911 security costs to pay.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[blincoln]

Not in my extensive experience.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[Anonymous Coward]

I would rather have tree-of-life root.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[mutterc]

tried to take his own life last winter, but only succeded in making himself worse off.

The alt.suicide.holiday FAQ used to deal with this well. By describing all of the suicide methods available in gory detail, including all of the things that could go wrong, it provided a nice anti-suicide influence on the depressed.

Reading it, a depressive could easily get the idea: "Geez, if I try this, I could end up with all of the problems I have now, plus being crippled (which is annoying and expensive), plus being on suicide watch so I can't finish the job. Why bother?"

Alas, these days that FAQ is significantly more suicide-positive - it glosses over the potential problems and focuses on the good side of there being fewer people once you're gone.

I think, rather than glurge stories of people considering suicide and then turning their lives around, we need to publish stories of those who were worse off as a result of botched attempts, to discourage the others.

Re:Hack it and keep high forever

[TheLink]

"If I am constantly given negative stimuli, would the baseline not drop, making me feel happier in general, even though absolute quality of life remains unchanged?"

Probably not. You might risk a shorter lifespan too.

I think it's a bit like eating. You eat, you feel full. After a while you get hungry again. Eating is not so important for some people, but important for others etc. So if something bad happens to you, you get really sad for a while, but you tend to bounce back to your norm[1] (which could be "mildly sad"). That said some study has shown that most people take about 8 years to recover from loss of a spouse[2].

However there are some unfortunate people who feel like they are starving all the time (even though they are very well nourished).

But if you're just a normally "mildly sad" person, not a clinically depressed person, you might be able to change your norm by willing it. For some people, just the act of forcing a smile improves the mood somewhat. Could be like body building - strengthen your happiness muscles :).

I'm not sure how crappy your life is.

In our imperfect world, sadness is useful, like pain. But chronic sadness is about as useful as chronic pain.

Hopefully stuff like this pacemaker is actually one of the tools that can actually work and help people.

[1] http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/0502/ memory.html

[2]
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/03/17/marria ge.poll .reut/index.html

St John's Wort

[Moderation abuser]

Used for hundreds of years, medically proven to act as anti-anxiety/anti-depressant, the active components being Hypericin/Hyperforin.

Re:St John's Wort

[CockblockTheVote]

but St Johns Wort is natural, and can't be patented. so there is no money in it. other than the obnoxious prices for supplements... why use what nature made when you can create something new, that may have drastic side effects. personally, when i see the drug ads on tv, and they list the side effects, i would rather deal with heartburn than have my sex life go down or suffer from explosive diarria.

Re:St John's Wort

[hilaryduff]

like most anti-depressants, it might work for some people, it might not. people need to make sure they consult their doctor before trying something like it, because it can interact with other drugs.. and be toxic in overdose etc.

Re:St John's Wort

[Xenoflargactian]

Yeah, but most people ignore the fact that the side effects they list happen in less than X% of patients, where X is usually less than 10. Comedians like to overlook this and make jokes as though if you took a pill, you'd get every side effect (when in fact you're often going to get no side effects at all, or something small like 'dry mouth')

Re:St John's Wort

[Xenoflargactian]

Also, another (too often overlooked) natural supplement is 5-HTP. It's the direct precursor to seratonin in the brain, and is absorbed better than L-Tryptophan. 5-HTP comes from an african plant.

Giving 5-HTP a try might be very worthwhile if you'd benefit from an SSRI such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, or Lexapro.

Re:St John's Wort

[oncebitten]

But it takes about 4-6 weeks of taking it 2 to 3 times a day to kick in. Not very useful if you have people with severe depression, and general depressives who tend to not be the sort who will keep to a regimen.

Re:St John's Wort

[scottv67]

Riiiiiiiiight. Send me some links on the "medically proven."

The only thing it's proven to do is A) take money out of your wallet and B) make you more sensitive to sunlight if you consume enough.

Re:St John's Wort

[Xenoflargactian]

Wow. Exactly HOW is my comment flamebait? Is it too inflammatory to point out that side effects for many medications often occur in a very small percentage of the users and that the risks are often overexaggerated? Why is moderation anonymous?

Re:St John's Wort

[mutterc]

crazymeds.org says "for gods' sakes, don't take 5-HTP if you're on an SSRI or similar medication!"

This makes sense if you think about it. SSRIs (Selective Serontonin Reuptake Inhibitors) keep your brain from absorbing as much serontonin as it otherwise would, so more is available. If you take 5-HTP on top of that, you can get too much serontonin, and your brain is blocked from bringing the level down by the SSRI.

Yes, it's possible to have too much serontonin. Google "serontonin syndrome". It's not fatal, or even long-term damaging (AFAIK), but it's quite unpleasant.

This also means if you're not on antidepressants, experiment with your 5-HTP dosage, and lower it if you feel... funky.

Not for everybody

[DisasterDoctor]

Please remember that the FDA has approved this device only for treatment-resistant depression. This is not first line therapy.

Re:Not for everybody

[hesiod]

> Please remember that the FDA has approved

Not quite on-topic with the thread, but difinitely for the article... When I read the summary, I wondered: how does this fall under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration? Is someone seriously going to eat this device? Does an appropriate (or maybe just appropriately-named) division of the government even exist to look at things like these?

And also, why is it that /. decided suddenly to hold me back for five minutes just because I can think and type faster than some others? To give them a "chance to post?" THEY HAVE THE FREAKING CHANCE I DO. Maybe the time length should be based on Karma or something... Just seems stupid.

Re:Not for everybody

[AuMatar]

The Drug part of FDA has long been extended to include all medical procedures. Which makes sense- the people in charge of medicine looking at a different treatment option.

Re:Not for everybody

[hesiod]

I know, I just like repeating the same stupid statements... ;)

I've been stimulating my gf's vagus nerve for...

[GojiraDeMonstah]

a while now, and it seems to help keep her from being depressed.

Not Terminal Man...

[Magnusite]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Dial in your own emotions.

Re:Not Terminal Man...

[Gyorg_Lavode]

Isn't this the book that Blade Runner is based on?

Re:Not Terminal Man...

[mbrewthx]

Yes Terminal Man

Re:Not Terminal Man...

[Magnusite]

Yes, it's the title of the Philip K. Dick novella that Blade Runner was based on. The people in the story had little rotary phone type contraptions which would adjust their emotional state. There were several known combinations that people would dial in, from "giddy" to "serene". The hero of the story was slightly irritated by his wife, who had experimented with combinations and created her own states - "morose" and "malaise". It's a shame that never made in into the movie.
I thought somebody else would have pointed that out, or at least modded me up. Oh, well. Life, don't talk to me about life.

Spelling

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

Of course, my spelling would really go to shit on that thing!

Instead of electric shocks

[zymano]

How about a tube with drugs flowing directly to to the spot that controls depression.

Sidenote-Believe it or not,read in the paper that people that drink alot coffee have less depression. Not sure on this. I only remember it vaguely.

Daddy needs his medicine...

[TheStonepedo]

Do you have to try the gateway drugs first or can you skip right to the good stuff?

"I feel horrible. I need a shock bad. Come on, gimme that shock, doc."

pretty skeptical

[soma_0806]

I know someone that has gone through traditional electroshock twice and there seems to be very little positive effect when weighed against the side effects. He lost a lot of his memory and right after treatment would commonly get caught in little loops (telling the same joke, story, etc. over and over).

The only good thing is that he would mildly stabilize a few weeks after treatment and the effects would seem to subside (right in time for another round, incidentally). However, if these shocks were continual, then the side effects may be too, rendering it pretty useless.

AC

Re:pretty skeptical

[hesiod]

> He lost a lot of his memory

Perhaps it works for other people because it causes them to forget what was depressing them in the first place!

(Please excuse me for making a joke at your friend's expense, it isn't directed at anyone in particular and was not intended to be hurtful)

Re:pretty skeptical

[soma_0806]

No harm done. He made the same joke.

Of course he followed the joke with a long metaphor about how some people's brains are healthy and beautiful and could be sliced and served like sushi, while other people's brains need a little medicinal "poaching" to be edible, and still others, like him, had the kind of brain you mince, deep-fry, and hope for the best.

Re:pretty skeptical

[lauriejean]

I underwent traditional ECT treatments. I found them to be helpful, as did the majority of others with whom I was being treated. Yes, I had short term memory loss, but it quickly subsided. Such treatment does not work well for everyone, but it appears to help the majority of those who elect to use it. The traditional treatments actually induce seizure activity in the brain, so work differently from the proposed vagus nerve stimulator.

don't they listen to tom cruise

[Surt]

Depression isn't due to problems in the brain!

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[CockblockTheVote]

it's because they don't know the history of psychiatry. and ONLY tom cruise knows the history of psychiatry. and we should be happy, because one day he will be allowed to tell us the history of psychiatry that he knows.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[venicebeach]

Well, Tom Cruise is not entirely incorrect (although he's certainly insensitive, and somewhat insane).

The idea of depression being "due to a problem with the brain" is something of a misconception; of course it is one that has been promoted and reenforced by pharmaeutical companies.

Any mental state has a corresponding underlying physiology, but it really isn't correct to say one causes the other - to say the physiological state of the brain "causes" depression. Certainly when people become depressed that is associated with chemical changes in brain function. But cognitive behavioral therapy is (in most cases) as successful as drug treatment, and best results are when you use both. In other words, depression is cured by either changing thought patterns or by changing the chemical physiology of the brain, but really these two things are just two sides of the same coin.

To say that depression is a simply physiological disorder is misleading at best. Since all mental function is grounded in the biology of the brain, any mental state can be affected through a physical intervention, but that doesn't mean the state is "purely biological" or "caused" by brain function. For example, neuroimaging studies have shown that some of the abnormal patterns of brain activation you see in obsessive compulsive disorder change as a result of cognitive-behavioral therapy, that is, changing thoughts and behavior without drugs.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[torpor]

Well, Tom Cruise is not entirely incorrect (although he's certainly insensitive, and somewhat insane).


Define 'insane'?

Congratulations. You've just formed the basis of a multi-trillion dollar business empire.

1. Define 'insanity'.
2. Sell drugs to make people conform to #1's definition.
3. [there is no "3. ???"]
4. Profit!!!!

Trust not the seller of drugs designed to change ones life, for they will indeed, for a profit, change your life .. according to their ways, not yours.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Tom Cruise is not entirely incorrect

If I say I believe Windows XP is insecure because the little XP elves that live inside my computer always forget to lock the door behind them, would you say I am "not entirely incorrect" too?

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[venicebeach]

No, if you said that you'd be entirely incorrect.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[venicebeach]

Define 'insane'?

Tom Cruise.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[hackstraw]

The idea of depression being "due to a problem with the brain" is something of a misconception; of course it is one that has been promoted and reenforced by pharmaeutical companies.

Although I would love to agree with this, having issues with depression for over 20 years, I believe that I know a thing or two about it.

I have bipolar disorder (aka manic-depression), and I do need to be on medication to control it. I cannot say that situational events outside of my brain chemistry have no effect on my mood like anybody else, however I do go through distinct mood swings, even with medication.

A brief description of bipolar disorder goes like this -- Depression is the underlying issue for both the depressive side (duh) and the manic side. This is from what I understand, and it matches my experience as well, the manic phase is due to a biological reaction to being so depressed for an extended period of time. I compare it to anorexia-nervosa. There is an ironic characteristic with anorexia where the body goes into hyper mode after dropping below a certain level of fat tissue in the body that puts the body into "flight" mode. Biologically, one theory behind this is that it is a survival trait that when the body is without adequate food for a certain time, the body goes into overdrive so that the individual can have the energy to relocate and get food and survive.

Granted, I don't believe that there is much of a survival aspect with being manic as with the anorexic, but mania does appear to be a reaction to being depressed for an extended period of time. In fact, if I only take an antidepressant without a mood stabilizer as well, I will go into a manic phase fairly shortly.

I would love to be free of medication, the responsibility to take it, its cost, and the side effects, but I have come to accept that the positives of taking the meds outweighs the negatives. Now, its not like if I stop taking my meds I will be in a bad state within a week to two. It could be up to a year, depending on other things. Its a matter of when, not if.

I will say that being depressed sucks. In itself, being depressed is depressing. I loose interest and motivation to do things. I don't care about much. I can get into a compulsive work mode in an effort to make myself feel better, but it really only keeps my mind off of things. I get this empty bottomless pit feeling in my gut, and I simply do not feel good. I don't want to be around people or go out, I would rather just sit in my misery. When I'm very depressed, I can hallucinate a bit.

Now, being manic can be fun to an extent. The best way that I can explain it to most people is that it is like being on LSD for weeks or months at a time. I have gone without sleep for a good part of 2 weeks. I can get into very interesting sexual situations. I'm slightly psychic. I have very racing thoughts and mood swings throughout the day where I'm irritable and cranky to full of life and the life of the party. I have the attention span of a fly. Its almost impossible to do something like read or anything else where I have to sit still for an extended period of time.

I will also mention that I know a few people with my disorder as well. I'm unsure if anybody has it as severe as I do. As far as the manic-depressive scale goes, I'm off the charts. The most extreme manic swing is characterized as having psychotic features (manic psychosis, I believe) and that is where I have been, although not in years. Also, its worth noting that every time an individual goes through a manic episode, it impairs the person even further each time. I've seen an older woman that was bipolar that I believe (and the court believes) that she will never be able to function on her own.

Now, back to the skeptical view. I do believe that depression is over diagnosed and I find it difficult that humans have evolved over the years into a more depressed group of people. It does not biologically make sense. Aside from some benefits of be

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[Anonymous Coward]

If I say I believe Windows XP is insecure because the little XP elves that live inside my computer always forget to lock the door behind them, would you say I am "not entirely incorrect" too?

No, I would say you misspelled 'daemons'.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[Dobeln]

The article states that this is intended for cases where the normal drugs-'n-therapy route doesn't work. So, I wouldn't get too Cruise-ish about this whole thing, really... :)

Of course, therapy is also about inducing electrical-biological changes to the brain, only using a different interface method.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not only Tom Cruise, this "History" of psychiatry is a feature of $cientology.

(posting anon due to fear of $cientology law suit)

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[blincoln]

1. Define 'insanity'.
2. Sell drugs to make people conform to #1's definition.
3. [there is no "3. ???"]
4. Profit!!!!

Have you ever had a friend with a genuine psychological disorder, like schizophrenia? They are not "just different." They need treatment, particularly in the form of medication.

Just because US pharmaceutical companies like to sell fashionable products to gullible people does not mean that all psychiatric drugs are a scam.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[Anonymous Coward]

While it's true that congnitive therapy can result in benefits without drug treament, this is grossly misleading in the case of severe persistant depression. Generally a combination of drugs and therapy works the best.

The more important thing to note is that those who have experienced multiple periods of moderate to severe depression have significant *physical* damange to their brains, especially in certain regions such as the hippocampus.

The damage is what you'd expect after many small localized strokes.

And by the way, it's quite clear that either Tom Cruise has never met anyone experiencing severe chronic depression, or he an unspeakably cruel excuse for a human.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[swatoa]

What is it like when you're hallucinating? Do you believe what you're seeing is real, or do you recognize that the images/sounds/whatever are only a product of your mind and not of reality?

BTW, I myself having heavy depression (maybe bipolar-II, a less extreme version of BPD), anxiety (panic attacks), and OCD, I sympathize with and respect your stance on not passing on your genes onto a child. I would never want this kind of senseless suffering on anyone. Maybe if medical treatment of mental illness significantly improves to such a degree that these problems can essentially be cured, I'll reconsider my views, but as it stands, we just don't have a good enough understanding of the mechanisms behind brain disorders.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[torpor]

'genuine psychological disorder' == defined for you by your industrial masters.

'schizophrenia' just means "someone i don't like to talk to".

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[hackstraw]

What is it like when you're hallucinating? Do you believe what you're seeing is real, or do you recognize that the images/sounds/whatever are only a product of your mind and not of reality?

When I'm depressed, the hallucinations are dreamlike with a slight soundtrack of repetitive music or pieces of a song. Its hard to explain, but dreamlike is the best way.

The hallucinations when I'm manic are more mental, like with the psychic thoughts and other "thoughts of grandeur" kind of stuff.

Maybe hallucinations are a bit of an exaggeration or the wrong word. But I do go through mental processes and thoughts and perceptions that are not "normal". To a degree I know what is going on, but perception is all we have. If something seems like it takes "forever" and its only a minute or so, the "forever" perception is the real one, not the elapsed time.

What's even more difficult is that its hard for me to realize that I am depressed, unless I'm really super depressed, but even then my thoughts and feelings seem real. I have to remind myself that its only temporary, and I won't think and feel so bad forever, but its common for me to have suicidal thoughts that may or may not have anything to do with external events. I will say that I am getting better at recognizing my states and dealing with them, especially when depressed. When manic, I basically don't like it. My attention span is too short, and I get frustrated with all of my grandiose thoughts that have over 99% failure rate in being fulfilled. I'm also just uncomfortable. Nothing really satisfies me.

Over the past 5 or 6 years, I've been drinking large amounts of alcohol to deal with the situation, but I simply cannot drink to that extreme anymore. I've gotten in a decent amount of legal problems from it, and more importantly to me, the health issues have gotten to be undesirable. I had diarrhea for over a year, and my brain and motivation were going to mush. I will say though, that alcohol is a pretty damn good mood stabilizer. If I'm depressed, the feeling goes away, and I become more social and outgoing. If I'm manic, it calms me down. I can sleep, and be even more life of the party :) Now, I'm talking about also being on my medication and that the extremes are not that extreme, but noticeable.

Yuck, I hate this stuff.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[maxpublic]

You may be able to improve the quality of life of a patient through therapy in select cases, but if the underlying problem is a defect in the brain then no amount of counseling is going to cure the person in question. The depressives that're going to use this device are severe cases, and there's a heap of evidence that shows that this sort of depression stems from a biological malfunction completely independent of outside influences.

Therapy won't help these people any more than therapy will help a classic schizophrenic.

Max

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[Bones3D_mac]

I can't say I agree with you on this. The brain is driven by a complex system of electro-chemical reactions. (Many of which we don't yet understand.) To completely disregard a flaw in this system as a cause of depression is foolish at best.

While there may be some truth to the whole "those who will themselves to be depressed will be depressed" philosophy, it's certainly not the an accurate picture of the condition itself, which can greatly vary from case to case.

I do feel that the condition is often misdiagnosed, causing many individuals who don't really need any help to get locked into taking drugs with addictive properties similar to heroin. Under many circumstances, depression in itself is a normal and healthy physical/mental response that all humans experience at some point in their lives. However, in a society where instant gratification is emphasized, the prospect of a "make me happy again" pill is all to attractive to ignore.

Once you've been hooked on one of these meds for a while, your body changes chemically, and eventually starts to require the drug to be present in order for you to continue feeling "normal".

As a result, many of these miracle depression treatments end up causing more depression rather than actually curing anything. They only go after the condition itself, rather than the cause.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[venicebeach]

Agreed. My point is not that the brain can never actually be damaged - just that in most cases the description of mood disorders as being caused by "chemial imbalances" in the brain is misleading.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[aardvaark]

I'm afraid you don't quite understand either. To say talk therapy works as good as medication for ANY person is incorrect. The chances that talk therapy will work as well as medication for a RANDOM person is more correct. There is a spectrum of disorder. For some, medication IS the only way.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[blincoln]

'schizophrenia' just means "someone i don't like to talk to".

That's a very clever-sounding assumption. How sad that it's totally inaccurate.

I dated a girl with schizophrenia in high school. We talked all the time, and she was very intelligent about things like math. But because her condition worsened over time after she stopped getting treatment, she lost the ability to interact with the real world in any sort of meaningful way. Now, over a decade later, the person that she could have been is irrevocably lost.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[matth88]

Attribution please!! This is abject nonsense. SSRIs equvalent in addictive properties to heroin? Based on what studies? (Hint, there are none).

Depression is *not* a normal response that all humans experience. It is like nothing most people can possibly comprehend, an utterly alien, horrible feeling. Let me ask you: When was the last time *you* have felt that the decision to live or die was a coin toss? I've dealt with this over the past 25 years, w/ depressive episodes running between 2 and 14 months in length, covering over 2/3 of those years.

This is *not* a "make me happy" pill! This is a "take away the depression pill." Don't get the idea that slamming down a few prozac is like viagra for the mind -- it just ain't so.

The bit about being hooked to continue to feel normal is just plain wrong. The accepted science shows that depression is a degenerative disease that will continue to get worse and worse absent being arrested by medication (or sometimes just therapy for mild cases).

Lastly, about "going after the condition itself, rather than the cause" this is dead wrong. Once a depressive episode or two have been experienced, depression itself *is* the disease, and is no longer a reflection of any underlying "cause" (though stress and other things can accellerate the destruction.) The risk factor is simply that the mind has suffered from depression before, and external events become far less signficant. It is a disease pure and simple, and it needs to be taken seriously and attacked directly.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[adrianmonk]

To say that depression is a simply physiological disorder is misleading at best. Since all mental function is grounded in the biology of the brain, any mental state can be affected through a physical intervention, but that doesn't mean the state is "purely biological" or "caused" by brain function.

I agree that it's misleading to say it's purely physiological. But, it's misleading to say that the cause is always thought patterns, i.e. that it's purely psychological.

This is the way that I think of depression: the mood that people associate with depression comes about because of a lack of the neurotransmitter serotonin. That is the immediate cause of the bad feelings. But, what causes your brain to be low on its supply of serotonin? It can be, fundamentally, one of two things: either something is causing your brain to use it up too quickly, or not enough of it is produced in the first place.

In most cases, using it up too quickly is going to happen because of psychological issues. One thing that causes you to use up serotonin is stress. You can thus enter a depressed state of mind for purely psychological reasons, such as being upset about the loss of someone you love, dealing with the stress of a difficult situation, or even stuff like being a dumbass and getting yourself into bad situations frequently.

However, it's also possible that your body just doesn't produce enough serotonin in the first place. Thus, you are always in short supply, and stressful events that would affect other people only in minor ways cause you to become dangerously low on serotonin because you didn't have that much in the first place.

To make matters a little more cloudy, a depressed state of mind can lead to behavior that causes stressful situations, which can then cause depletion of serotonin and perpetuate the depression. So, you can be stuck in a bad state that lasts a long time even if there is nothing really wrong with your physiology.

All in all, I think most people who experience depression experience a temporary state that is caused by psychological issues, and it may linger for a while because it's hard to break the cycle, but it doesn't represent a physiological abnormality. But I do think there are people out there who have a physiological abnormality relating to brain chemistry. They are in the minority, but they are out there.

On the subject of psychological therapy, I agree that it can help. In the case of people whose problem isn't fundamentally caused by something physical, it is probably the key to ending the depression (assuming the key isn't getting them out of or changing a bad situation they're in!). In the case of people whose depression is caused by a physical issue, it still can be helpful, because the mood is basically an equilibrium that is determined by several factors, and things like how you deal with stuff (psychologically) can shift the equilibrium.

But, in neither case is it helpful to misunderstand the fundamental cause. For the person whose problem starts with pscyhological issues, it isn't helpful to just give them drugs and forgo the counseling that they need to solve the problems and be fine without drugs. On the other side of the coin, for the person whose problem starts with biological issues, it isn't helpful to pretend that drugs are a crutch and that, if they only worked harder in therapy, they would be able to "snap out of it" and they'd be fine when that's not true.

On the subject of drugs, I think drugs can be useful for either class of person suffering from depression. For the person who can have a stable mood if they can only climb out of the temporary state they're in because of, basically, a chemical feedback loop, drugs can temporarily boost serotonin levels enough give them more breathing room to work on their problems. For the person whose depression is physiological in origin, the drugs may not correct the exact problem but they can make the situation better. (For example, SSRIs don't promote production of serotonin -- they only prevent the body from disposing of "excess" quantities, and thus shift the balance.)

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[jt2190]

Sure, and diet and exercise help control insulin levels in diabetics, but you don't hear anyone telling them they shouldn't use insulin if it's required. Seriously, the whole pharmaceutical company consipiracy theory thing is getting really, really tired.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[le_defaut_tragique]

Well, Tom Cruise doesn't think anything. He's spouting cult propaganda. Blame Scientology.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[Anonymous Coward]

What brought me out of my five years of severe depression, was not the anti-depressants I took - though they certainly helped me feel so much better that I could attend cognitive psycho-therapy - but realising and understanding what caused it. It came to me like one those rare glimpses of insight one day in psychology class - what I realised was just how sociophobic I had become and more importantly, why...

I went to a school for people with depression and phobic conditions and my life has improved dramatically since. In fact more than 90% of the people who go to this school see a dramatic improvement (this from their internal statistics, no reference, sorry).

In other words, Tom Cruise and his $ciento£ogy tech-voodoo-bullshit can fuck right off...

Oh, how ironic, the image below says "trapped"...

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[torpor]

Now, over a decade later, the person that she could have been is irrevocably lost.

Who decides who she could have been, you or her?

I think holding people up to false and unfair ideals without letting them just be who they want to be is the real mental disease ..

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[Abcd1234]

And, thus this post proves that even those with low Slashdot IDs can be totally fucking idiots. Congrats!

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[TheLink]

While there are some people who want to be crippled or lose a limb, most people don't. And unfortunately not everyone gets a choice in that matter.

The same goes for losing ones mind.

I'm not talking about "false and unfair ideals". Talking about - most people would like to have a nice working pair of arms, legs. And a reasonably working mind.

Don't tell me if one of your friends is really drunk and insists on driving or doing something stupidly dangerous, you'll let them "just be who they want to be". Most drunks sober up on their own, but some need serious medical attention - otherwise they would die. And I'd say all are better off if there are good and capable friends around to help.

Re:don't they listen to tom cruise

[torpor]

And I'd say all are better off if there are good and capable friends around to help.


Without full and total disclosure about the failures of a mental-screening system, whereby 'standards of mental health' are established, how can you know whether or not the system of health works?

the current 'field of mental health' simply has far too much to hide. the very nature of the right of privacy precludes the right to 'help someone be normal because they dont fit societies standards'. always.

otherwise, we get doctrine and dictators..

The end of Social Justice?

[LionKimbro]

Theory: Many instances of depression are due to social injustice, apathy, the slow pace at which society reforms itself.

Concern: If we drug or electrically stimulate ourselves to keep ourselves happy, social progress comes to a halt. We feel good about ourselves, even though horrible things happen around us.

Here is a bibliography kept by AdBusters. I'm not sure how reliable a bibliography kept by AdBusters is, but these are things that we should be thinking about, and research that we should at least consider.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[pavon]

Except this isn't approved for many instances of depression. It is only approved for severe cases of clinical depression which most definately aren't caused by external causes.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Iriel]

Then again, I certainly understand your concern because I think complacency is the root of a lot of problems that our society suffers from (see also, the most recent MS related article no matter when you happen to read this).

However, while I know that most companies would want to use this as an instant fix to make the patient feel good no matter what, the scientific goal here is not to make the depressed 'happy' per se. Rather, the original goal of inventions like this as well as anti-depressants are to simply return the depressed to a normal state of mind in which they can cope with everyday life without the overwhelming imbalance.

I can only hope that this implant would be used correctly.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[DrEldarion]

This wouldn't be used to treat those people, though. This is a severe measure which would be used to treat people who have actual, chemical things wrong with them, who despite having EVERYTHING in their life going right, can still be thinking about suicide.

Anybody who's known someone with REAL depression knows that it can be completely non-situational.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[gad_zuki!]

There's a difference between depression which everyone gets and major or chronic depression which has nothing or very little to do with one's environment.

The idea that treatment will stop progress is pretty ridiculous and the pollyanna-types have been screaming this Brave New World. Doesn't seem to be happening at all and the idea that its moral to deprive very sick people of treatment for the greater social good is kinda disturbing. If your society is at that point, then "social justice" has long left you.

Also, I'd like to point out that in every democracy people tend to vote against their best interests and the interests of others over party loyalty, hot button issues, or just plain old fashioned ideology regardless of how they feel. In the US, the poorest states vote for the party which wants to dismantle the very social programs they depend on to get by. So the thesis itself sounds highly flawed to me.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[torpor]

Rather, the original goal of inventions like this as well as anti-depressants are to simply return the depressed to a normal state of mind in which they can cope with everyday life without the overwhelming imbalance.

Either you didn't understand the grandparent post, or you chose to ignore his point entirely.

What society considers a 'normal state of mind' will change drastically, as more and more people become mindless zombies hell-bent on their next subscription/capacitor discharge.

Proponents of devices like this want to change society according to their rules.

Repeat after me: There is no normal.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Gothmolly]

Here's another theory:

Youve so indoctrinated children and (now) adults into thinking that wishing makes it so, and that self-esteem is more important than objective results, or that no matter what, you're entitled to a 'fair' life, and a 'good' job.

Guess what. Life isn't like that. So what does a college graduate do, when he finds that the world is a cold, hard place? Many things, becoming depressed is one of them.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason why so many people are depressed is because they live on junk food. You are what you eat.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

We feel good about ourselves, even though horrible things happen around us.

I don't think you have an accurate depiction of exactly what depression is. I've suffered serious depression since I was a young kid. I grew up middle-class in a great family and was blessed with intelligence, great health, and decent looks

Yet, despite all this I struggle through most days just trying to maintain an normal life. It's only through determined effort that I'm able to allow some of my talents and personality make it into the world, but they are often held back. Multiply my case by millions and you have very real impediment to social progress.

Depression is a very serious thing and I guarantee you that more people truly suffer from it than you might think. Finding a solution isn't ignoring reality, which can sometimes be ugly. Instead it's managing a way to face that reality with your full potential, and anything that leads to that, in my opinion, is progress.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[beeplet]

Many instances of depression are due to social injustice, apathy, the slow pace at which society reforms itself.

That may be true. However, I think it is still possible to distinguish between the depression which is a normal response to a poor environment, and pathological depression that needs treatment. It's like many other psychological responses that probably evolved because they were useful and healthy in certain situations, but can become unhealthy when the effect is disproportionate to the cause.

Depression, for example, might have evolved as a way for animals to deal with conflict. If a wolf loses a battle for dominance it becomes withdrawn temporarily - a kind of depression. In this case it is better for the animal to withdraw and live than continue to challenge and be killed. But if depression continues to the point where someone takes his own life, it's a natural response gone off the rails.

I've also read that people who are depressed are often more realistic when it comes to assessing their environment - people who aren't depressed tend to be overly optimistic. But I don't think there is really much danger in prescribing anti-depressants. If anything, if you want social change, a populace that is worn down and apathetic is least likely to put in the effort required. So I think it works both ways.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both the theory and the concern are valid if not, dare I say, correct. But I think the idea behind it is....

1. shock people
2. ???
3. profit!

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[div_2n]

I find this theory to be extremely lacking. People don't think this way when it comes to treatments for heart disease, diabetes and things like that. Sure, some people should exercise more and lose weight to address their health issues, but there are some people that live unbelievably healthy lifestyles and still suffer from those type of ailments. Their bodies just don't respond to stimulus the right way.

I do not know why people insist the brain is any different just because we "think" with it. There is no reason to expect that the brain has some special property about it whereby it is incapable of a fundamental structural physiological problem that can manifest itself in negative ways such as depression. Just as someone who is born full blown type 1 diabetic could never produce insulin without some type of surgical intervention, it is logical to expect that there are people born with physical problems with their brain that will prevent them from ever being completely normal regardless of how much of a mental effort they put forth.

Just my $0.02.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Heisenbug]

Well ... in all fairness, severe clinical depression is very much on the rise. It must be caused by *something*.

There's really not much difference between your mind and your brain. It doesn't have to be unrelated to your social environment just because it's very much a physical illness.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Iriel]

I understand it entirely, but accidentally forgot to add my tag at the end.

I was simply saying that, if possible, it would be a good idea to remind the FDA that regulations should be set in place so those that implant these devices don't use them to radically alter brain behavior beyond simply balancing it.

I tell people that the only difference between ADD and ADHD is 250mg if that lets you know how much I despise certain recent medical trends. However, I have seen cases that are beyond the limits of any easy solution. My fear isn't so much the magnitude of change in brain activity due to the implant. This thing is designed to correct problems that current treatments have proven fruitless against. My concern is actually this:

I have a medical condition that doctors thought would render me unusually short because of damage to my pituitary gland. I would have had to undergo a growth horomone treatment that lasts for several hours to correct it, but lo and behold, I came out fine. That treatment is used on many people with my condition, but to my disgust, the FDA approved it last year for 'cosmetic use'. That's right, if you want your child to be taller, you can have it for a treatment that costs a few thousand dollars that used to be reserved for only those that needed it. My fear is when people seek out this implant (if it does, indeed, work) because they don't want to go through the hassle of remembering their pills. It would probably take a few years for the FDA to approve it for Joe Sixpack, but that's when the normal state of mind would change. What we need to do is get strong regulations on this quickly, before it can get that out of hand.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[toad3k]

So it is an implant you put in your head that makes you happy.

I'd like to make a parallel between this implant, cocaine, and porn. All supplant some physical or mental need with an artificial substitute. All take away (or at least retard) ones desire to improve their situation in life to varying degrees.

Just sayin'.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[milimetric]

Here's a hint to solve depression:

Stop binge drinking yourselves to death you dumb Americans.

Alcohol is a bypass way to feed your brain some of the chemicals that it normally regulates, most notably some chemical that regulates mood. If you use alcohol, your brain stops producing that shit. Consequentially you become "depressed". I'm willing to bet some money on whether or not Alcohol industry invests in the manufacturing of this "serenity device". (If you've seen the sneak peak of Serenity, you totally appreciate this story and the responses).

Note to idiot country: drink more like the europeans and less like the rednecks that taught you this stupid hobby passed from wandering lonely whiskey guzzling ancestors.

In general America, for a reality check look at other countries and if you can't do it, buy a George Carlin CD and let him do it for you. Example: Bulemia is NOT a real disease. Notice how it's not as popular these days as in the 80s when the ideal for beauty was thinner than it is now (Thank god for that, keep it up busty ladies). Ok, enough of my ranting, this country's going to shit anyway and I'm moving to the moon soon, so good luck America.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, right.
and now poverty is not a shortage of things but a mental condition caused by unequal distribution of those things.

1)slow societal evolution is necessary for stability. historical fact.

2)apathy does not cause depression. go live in the South Pacific for a while.

3)what is social injustice? it's when the rights of society usurp the rights of the individual. yes, that can be depressing, but one can migrate.

4)artificial happiness is only unjust if forced upon the individual by society. As a free choise, well that's the most basic human right, to choose ones course in life, right or wrong in the eyes of society, so long as you're not messing with anyone elses right to choose...

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[germanStefan]

and while we are at it, lets also get rid of glasses...just hurting our species as those people aren't strong enough to survive...

...and why give people anti-bacteria...

joking of course. I agree that to a certain extent we should let our species evolve naturally, but sometimes for the social good, medication is a benefit. If america truely does have 5 million depressed people (I tend to disagree and think its lower) then something like this could be very beneficial as we can actually have them be productive members of societey. Many "clinically depressed" people I know can't seem to keep a job/stay in college

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Zackbass]

I do not know why people insist the brain is any different just because we "think" with it. There is no reason to expect that the brain has some special property about it whereby it is incapable of a fundamental structural physiological problem that can manifest itself in negative ways such as depression.

The problem with that assumption is exactly what you stated, it is completely different because we "think" with it. Our though processes ARE in large part the chemical messengers, which makes it impossible to make a distinction whether thought influences the physical part or whether the physical part influences thought.

This does not mean that there can't be strictly physiological problems with the brain because there definitely are, but to look at the brain like any other organ is foolish. Let me know when your foot changes its chemistry because its happy about getting a new sock.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[d34thm0nk3y]

The gulf between "becoming depressed" and having clinical depression is so vast that it actually hurts my head when people say stuff like this.

Seriously, equating not finding a job right away to the constant suffering the type of person who needs this therapy lives with is rather sickening.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[lawpoop]

The difference is that depression, like a lot of other mental illnesses, is not diagnosed like diabetes -- you can't take a blood test and have it come out positive for depression. We don't have a good theory as to what exactly it is, what causes it, or even how it happens. The best we have is "it has something to do with the level of serotonin in the brain" because drugs that affect serotonin levels cause changes in mood.

Depression is different because you can be depressed because of something that happened. The brain is different because we think with it, just like the heart is different because it pumps blood, and the liver is different because is cleans blood, etc.

The difference is we have no objective way of knowing if someone is depressed because their mind is reacting reasonably to their environment, or if their brain is not working properly. The matter is complicated further because trauma can permanently change brain function later in life.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[kevmo]

Also in fairness, I hear cases of the IAmNotEqualToMyNeighbor SoIMadeADisease Syndrom (ISS) is also on the rise.

Seriously though, perhaps the definition and diagnostic methods for clinical depression could be the cause for a perceived increase in the number of cases, rather than the number of people actually inflicted? After all, it seems every year there is some new mental disease that is classified.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Gothmolly]

As someone who has lived with medically treated depression for years, I think I know what I'm talking about. I wasn't equating that with needing this type of therapy, thank you Mr. Strawman.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[LionKimbro]

Almost all of the success books I've read have argued that self-esteem and wishing are necessary pre-conditions for change.

The argument is that you go from hopelessness, to hope (wishing,) to figuring out how to do it, to faith that you're on the track.

So, if this is true then, the problem isn't that people are taught to have self-esteem, and the problem isn't that people are taught to wish; The problem is that people aren't taught (in school) the overarching plan (hopeless to hope to planning to faith to success): they aren't being taught how to take it to the next level.

The thing to do then, I would think, is not to argue against promoting self-esteem and wishing. On the contrary, it should be continued and encouraged. But it needs to be taken to the next level: Teaching planning forward, and trusting yourself to follow those plans, and trusting that those plans will work.

In the day by day battle, it's a matter of path A or path B. People who don't trust themselves enough to follow path A, will take the immediate gratification of path B.

I have a hard time understanding people who think that kids shouldn't have self-esteem though. Most everybody should have self-esteem. I think it's the basis of any social justice or personal gain.

For evidence, look at the self-esteem of the poor vs. the self-esteem of the wealthy.

Next, there's depression. The thing you are supposed to do with depression, (well, what worked for me,) is you're supposed to turn it into a motivator, a positive force. "Hey! There are real problems, in my life, in the world. I can't keep running away from this."

Drugs are running away from it.

Sadly, depression can become a very real, very mechanical, trap. That makes the case for depression drugs ambiguous.

We have a fucked up pseudoscience called "psychology," vs. a drug that will work. Society chooses the drug. We must exercise extreme caution, though, as I see it.

The theory is that people take the drug in order to not be so depressed that they can't analyze their own personal problems. Once they are not feeling so blue, they're supposed to solve the problems, and aspire to get out of the use of the drug.

Unfortunately, this theory is bogus. What we are seeing is that most people, they just get comfortable using the drug. Their minds rationalize it, then: "My brain was just messed up." They use the drugs for years and years and years, nary a diary entry, introspective moment, or conversation with friends.

This is not to mention: Many problems are how we work as a society. Different cultures don't have the same depression problem we do. Many people "give up." Those who don't, they work for social justice.

A general attitude of "Giving up" is a sign of depression. It seems to em that our society is depressed, then, since it has, for the most part, given up: "Social justice" is a bad word, and it means "imposition" to mots people. I think that's a bad sign.

We are not entitled to a fair world. But we'd be giving up, if we didn't strive to make one.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[selfdiscipline]

No, I don't think that is quite correct. The world isn't a cold, hard place. It just may seem that way in comparison to the illusions that we are brought up with.
A problem with living for objective results is that once you achieve what you focus your life on, you can end up feeling empty and, well... depressed, because you don't know what to do next. I think that is more why college students get depressed upon graduation. Feeling entitled to a good job after college probably doesn't help, either.
Self-esteem and positive thinking are often a good fallback when everything else seems to be going wrong. If the world seems a bad place, you can change either it or your perception of it. Often the latter is easier.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[The_Wilschon]

I think the trouble is that the brain is so complex, and we know so little about either it's state at a given time or about the entire range of states it could possibly be in, that defining "normal" or "correct" functioning of the brain is impossible at this time.

It's as if ancient greek doctors had cut somebody open, and seen the heart. They would ask themselves "is it normal for it be beating like that? Ok, if it should beat, is that how it should beat?" but they would have no way of knowing (without experimentation, which would tend to kill a lot of people before they figured anything out) quite what constituted a "normal" state for the heart.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[RobertLTux]

speaking as a person in the "Land Where Camels(r) Are Born" I would say [bold]Need A Light???[/bold]

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[NaruVonWilkins]

Actually, people do think that way when it comes to heart disease, diabetes, etc. It's called using preventive medicine - or just eliminating risk factors from your life. It's like riding a bicycle to work instead of driving in a car - it can lower stress and your risk of heart disease. Doctors often suggest exercise to people to prevent them from getting diabetes or heart disease. It's better than heart surgery later, or insulin.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[groomed]

the idea that its moral to deprive very sick people of treatment for the greater social good is kinda disturbing

As medical knowledge and skill increase, more and more people are diagnosed as suffering from some kind of affliction, and more and more treatment options appear.

If this development continues and at some point we invent a treatment for death, then are we morally obliged to keep everyone alive?

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[LS]

As you can see by the very different replies to your posting, the understanding of the human brain is still very limited, and the problems are extremely varied.

This all stems from the fact that the mind is not part of the world, but the world is in fact part of the mind. Science itself leads to the inescapable fact that everything you are perceiving right now is actually a set of neurons firing in your brain, which leads to a paradox - You make an implicit assumption that your mind is outside of the universe and perceiving it as an objective observer, but in fact, you are about to cap the spouting well, so to speak - this is where subjectivity and objectivity meet. The mind is creating the universe through its perception, and the universe creates the mind through physical laws. This duality is seen at a microscopic level in quantum mechanics - a seeming paradox that is not immediately solvable through normal thought processes.

Anyway, the point being that the mind is a completely different organ from the rest, if it should even be called an organ. Perhaps the brain is the organ that connects the universe to the mind. In otherwords, there are actually two parallel realities (subjective mind, objective universe), and they are tied together by this fractal infinitely complex mind/brain junction.

LS

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[FauxPasIII]

> This wouldn't be used to treat those people, though.

Sure, just like the microwave gun posted earlier today will never be used
on peaceful protesters, only rioters.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[reeve]

You, sir, are a jackass. I personally think alcohol is one of the worst substances in existence, but your idiotic assertion that drinking is the cause of all depression is baseless, as I do not drink yet I suffer serious chronic/manic depression. Not to mention the fact that Europe has substance abuse problems just like anywhere else. I actually agree with some parts of what you said, but the way you worded your post makes you sound like a hate-mongering idiot, which I'm forced to assume you *are*. I'm amazed people like you can survive, constantly trying to piss off everyone even if they agree with you.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[LionKimbro]

I suffered serious depression for about 4 years of my life. Crimped up on the bathroom floor for hours, crying my eyes out, dreaming up ways to kill myself type of depression. Depression that just: doesn't, go, away. I grew up in similar circumstance: middle-class family, awesome parents and sibling, blessed with intelligence, great health, decent looks. Spot on, all of them.

Where we part is that I got out of the depression, and you did not.

It wasn't something that happened in a day, it was something that happened slowly, with time, brick by brick. It was completely wrapped up in the process of making a model about life, what I was doing, figuring out what I believed in, making a map of what I understood. It involved a lot of experimentation and thinking, regularly in dangerous paths.

As someone who doesn't know you, doesn't want to offend you, and can't take on your load, I can only communicate so much:

I believe you are on the right path. Keep struggling, keep fighting. You live in a messed up society. Establish a rock solid secure base in your mind. If someone says something bad about you, it can't penetrate that far. Then gain ground over your mind and your self-perception. (If this makes any sense.) Start at your core, then reach out, into the details of your life. You'll have to renegotiate relationships with people around you, eventually.

I would take up introspection, meditation, and keeping a journal. Focus on anything that centers you on love, or whatever imaginably pure substance you can think up.

I know that hoards of people suffer depression. I've been depressed. I know how common it is. I see perfectly happy looking people, but their language and assumptions reflect negative outlook. Even though they fit in perfectly. I know that, back home, in their chair or bed, they're thinking different things.

Keep fighting, stay alive.

This is the solution that I know.

I think I've stumbled across another reasons why I distrust the drugs. Because people take the drugs, and show happiness, but the negative assumptions and viewpoints are still there. Nothing changes. But when I see people overcome depression by way of personal change, I always see the negative assumptions and viewpoints change.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just sayin' you don't know jack about what it means to suffer from depression.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Fred Ferrigno]

From the original post:

Sure, some people should exercise more and lose weight to address their health issues, but there are some people that live unbelievably healthy lifestyles and still suffer from those type of ailments. Their bodies just don't respond to stimulus the right way.

BTW, there's no inherent conflict between preventative and corrective medicine. People do develop illnesses despite living a healthy, sensible life. We accept that for most types of diseases, but we treat people with mental illness quite differently.

Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one you can get yelled at for having.
"Damn it Otto, you are an alcoholic!"
"Damn it Otto, you have Lupis!"
One of those two doesn't sound right.

Mitch Hedberg

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[NaruVonWilkins]

Yes, and that's a problem. I saw the commenter I responded to as saying that we should not be treating mental illnesses as a "separate category" without the possibility of preventive medicine.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[milimetric]

heh, I'm sorry, I did not mean any offense, and I did not say that alcohol is the cause for ALL depression. I think you're making the first mistake of arguing which is to argue against the person making an argument instead of against the argument.

As a matter of fact, I'm an entirely different person from what I say in anonymous slashdot posts used to incite people's response... I do sincerely apologize for any offense. In any case, I'm actually very interested in depression as my girlfriend actually suffers from it. She's been diagnosed with it and everything, had things subscribed, but I find that spending a little time with her and making her laugh is just as good a cure as anything else. I'm curious, how does your disease manifest itself, what do you do on a daily basis, and what do you think is the cause?

Cheers

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[bp m_i_k_e]

I'm not as sure about heart disease, but the suggestion that following doctor's orders will prevent diabetes is an inaccurate generalization.

Other than gestational diabetes (which is usually temporary), there are two types of diabetes - Type I and Type II.

Type I is caused by an auto-immune reaction that attacks the islet cells in the pancreas, causing the body to lose its ability to produce insulin. This form is treated by taking insulin injections. Type I diabetes most often occurs in children and adolescents (i.e., juvenile diabetes). The specific cause that triggers the body to attack the pancreas is not known and cannot be prevented with exercise.

Type II is associated with obesity and is more common. Heredity is also a factor, as much as obesity. In this form of the disease, the body still produces insulin but is unable to use it - described as insulin resistance. Normally, this form of diabetes is not treated with insulin. Normally, it is treated with oral medication that helps the body use the insulin that it produces. In some cases, individuals with Type II must take insulin if the medication does not work.

(Note: It is uncommon to see medical journals refer to the "Type 3 diabetes mellitus" category shown on Wikipedia. Most medical journals describe "Type 3" at as "other" without assigning a specific type, presumably since diabetes is secondary to the other condition.)

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[NaruVonWilkins]

Um, yes. I know. I thought it was pretty clear that I was referring to Type II.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[maxpublic]

The difference is we have no objective way of knowing if someone is depressed because their mind is reacting reasonably to their environment, or if their brain is not working properly.

I don't know why you'd think this. It's fairly easy even for an amateur to discern whether or not the reaction of a person in response to their environment is reasonable or not. In fact, our entire justice system is based upon that idea.

Severe depressives, just like schizophrenics, paranoids, etc. are clearly not reacting to their environment in anything like a reasonable manner. For a good number of disorders you can corroborate the existence of a problem via diagnostic tools like the PET scan.

It may not be possible for the PATIENT to objectively determine the severity of their problem, but it certainly is possible for a trained professional with modern diagnostic tools to do so, at least when it comes to these biologically-based disorders.

Max

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[lawpoop]

Depression is not a biologically-based disorder. For *severe* depression, yes, but for any other type of depression, there is no PET scan or any kind of thing that would tell you definately, 'this person has depression'.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[colmore]

They said that about pills too. But psychiatric medication is definitely given out at rates far in excess of medical psychiatric problems.

As someone with severe, diagnosed, bipolar disorder, it pisses me off. I feel like I'm lumped in with a bunch of people who would rather take pills than make changes to their lives.

Sooner or later, if this thing works, or hell even if it doesn't and the company that makes it just sends enough doctors on island vacations, it'll be used to help people deal with their shitty jobs, lack of exercize, addiction to consumerism, and all the other preventable causes of depression.

Someone else posted a link to Adbusters. Adbusters' anti-psychiatric medication standpoint is a little alarming, since they aim to get at the popular memespace of young people. They risk making it "not cool" to seek treatment for real illness. They are right, however, in suggesting that if you're having problems in your life, the cause is most likely something real that you can change, and you should look there first.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[scottv67]

Lawpoop's comments are right-on-the-mark. You, AC, are the idiot. You might learn something if you re-read Lawpoop's post and listened to what he/she has to say.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[scottv67]

Lawpoop, I agreed with your first post. This one is a little off the mark. If you said "There is no PET scan or any kind of thing that would tell you definately, 'this person has depression'" you would be on target.

Your post seems to apply that some forms of depression can be seen with high-priced imaging equipment while other can not. The truth is that *no* degree of depression can be seen with any imaging machine.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[scottv67]

I wish I had not posted to this discussion so that I could mod your stupid-ass comment down to minus one. Yes, I *do* have mod points today.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope your gf tries all of the anti-depression meds, struggles with the side-effects of each and then finds that none of the meds work long-term for her. Then I hope she leaves you a cute little note before she applies the only anti-depressant that is 100% effective....

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Shihar]

There is rational depression and chemical depression. Some people are just more inclined to be depressed then others. I got the good end of the genetic stick. I can honestly say I have never contemplated suicide once in my life. Bad things don't get me down for long. Sure, if someone dies I am sad like a normal human, but the pain goes away and I move on pretty damn content with my life. If I had one wish, it would be to live forever.

Contrast this to my best friend. She is bi-polar. Everything in the world could be awesome and she could slashing at her wrists for reasons she doesn't know. Nothing traumatic ever happened in her life and she probably had a much better childhood then I did. Her problem doesn't stem from society, it stems from the chemistry of her head, which is down right fucked up. If she didn't have drugs, she would either live a very miserable life or kill herself. Now, currently she is on a batch of drugs with minimal side effects that let her live an almost completely normal life. She still has her irrational dark moments, they are rare and short lived.

Before she found the right drugs she had to go through a pile of the wrong type of drugs. Some of these drugs had ugly side effects. One drove her temporarily insane after the first does. Another caused her face to break it in terrible acne. Another made her gain weight and always be sick to her stomach. Most just flat out didn't work. More research is needed. The mechanisms by which these drugs work is currently an almost complete mystery. For most drugs, we don't understand how they work, but simply that they do. What we need is an understand of the root cause and the ability to treat it, preferable with a minimal amount of side effects.

People who have never intimately known a truly depressed person can't understand what it is like. Someone who is depressed because of chemistry can not be rationalized with. A depressed person can KNOW that their life is good and nothing is wrong, they can know that their only problem is a chemical imbalance in their head, and they can still want to kill themselves.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

3)what is social injustice? it's when the rights of society usurp the rights of the individual. yes, that can be depressing, but one can migrate.

I think it's the other way around, when the rights of the individual usurp those of the greater good. For example accumulation of vast sums of money by the few at the expense of others, or the subjugation of a country due to its corrupt leadership (see any non-democratic state).

It is possible that one of the causes of depression is the individuality you hold so dear because it has come at a cost of closer ties to the community. When a person becomes depressed and has few or no support systems (such as extended family) near him to get him out of it, the condition becomes permanent and degenerative.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[maxpublic]

there is no PET scan or any kind of thing that would tell you definately, 'this person has depression'.

I don't see your point. It's possible with imaging technology to see chemical changes in the brain associated with certain behaviors. Severe depressives have a markedly altered brain chemistry that sets them apart from people who're just plain ol' depressed. They're even more distinguished in that the radical imbalance lasts for inordinate periods of time.

You can correlate these two things, just as you can use a PET scan to identify classical schizophrenia.

Severe depression IS a biologically-based disorder, just as schizophrenia and severe OCD are. All of these things stem from a malfunction, genetic defect, or outright brain damage. You CANNOT 'cure' severe depressives with therapy any more than you can cure appendicitis by chatting about it with your doctor.

The brain is an organ like any other. And it can be damaged like any other. To think that you can 'talk' someone out of a physical dysfunction is ludicrous.

Max

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[scottv67]

I don't see your point. It's possible with imaging technology to see chemical changes in the brain associated with certain behaviors. Severe depressives have a markedly altered brain chemistry that sets them apart from people who're just plain ol' depressed. They're even more distinguished in that the radical imbalance lasts for inordinate periods of time.

Can you post some (credible) links that mention the use of imaging technology to diagnose mood disorders? I'm pretty familiar with mood disorders and their treatment and have never heard of anyone being able to "see" a difference during a brain scan. Also, I've worked in some medical research environments so I got to see the "cutting edge" in imaging. They weren't even close to being able to diagnose mood disorders with a PET or MRI.

I'd love for this to have changed. Please supply links that describe the institution and the imaging method that was employed as a diagnostic tool.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[tehdaemon]

" Depression is not a biologically-based disorder."

Based on personal experience, this is blatantly wrong. Depression, or at least some 'kinds' of depression, are not caused by thoughts, and are not improved or worsened by thoughts.

The real trouble is that there is a kind (or kinds) of depression that is caused by negative thoughts. (loss of loved one, personal failure etc.) And this depression looks a lot like the other kind. To complicate matters, they can both occur at the same time, and the first type can cause the second. In addition, like you said, "there is no PET scan or any kind of thing that would tell you definately, 'this person has depression'." So diagnosis is done on the basis of asking the person how they feel and what they do. This is just not good enough to tell the difference. And they need different treatments.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[maxpublic]

Try "pet scan mood disorder" on Google. Go ahead, knock yourself out.

Max

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[bp m_i_k_e]

No, it was not clear - since you made a reference to exercise being a way to avoid the need to take insulin. The need to take insulin is associated with Type I. Obesity is associated with Type II diabetes - as a contributing factor to its onset, in people who have the necessary genes.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[matth88]

It has been shown that early episodes of depression may have identifyable external causes, but this link is broken for later episodes, which often have no observable "trigger" save from the regions of the brain that depression has damaged. And these regions are clearly identifyable by imaging techniques such as a PET scan.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, I'd like to point out that in every democracy people tend to vote against their best interests and the interests of others over party loyalty, hot button issues, or just plain old fashioned ideology regardless of how they feel. In the US, the poorest states vote for the party which wants to dismantle the very social programs they depend on to get by. So the thesis itself sounds highly flawed to me.

That's called apathy, ignorance and low voter turnout.

Re:The end of Social Justice?

[Baljet]

Well, I hadn't seen the 'sneak peak' of Serenity.

I think I can guess the plot to the entire film/River's secret now. Thanks. No. Really.

I hate the way movie trailers do this all the time...

Can you imagine...

[Miros]

Can you imagine what the commercials for this thing will be like? "Ever feel like there was something wrong with you? Well, we agree, and we have the answer. The device is simply installed in your brain, then your depression will evaporate. Common side effects include reading 1984 in a whole new light, extreme paranoia, and headaches."

What Would Tom Say?

[mcmediaman]

I wonder what Tom Cruise thinks about this....

Phew...

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only person who read that as

vague nerve stimulator?

Lucrative side business?...

[Anonymous Coward]

now, does this or does this not sound like the beginning of techno-narcotics?

"plug me in man, i need my fix" :P

Features?

[pablonhd]

USB?
Firewire?
SD Reader?

Oh the possibilities!

The vagus nerve (from wikipedia)

[Frangible]

The vagus nerve is tenth of twelve paired cranial nerves and is the only nerve that starts in the brainstem (somewhere in the medulla oblongata) and extends all the way down past the head, right down to the abdomen. The vagus nerve is arguably the single most important nerve in the body.

The medieval Latin word vagus means literally "wandering" (the words "vagrant", "vagabond", and "vague" come from the same root).

This nerve supplies motor and sensory parasympathetic fibres to pretty much everything from the neck down to the first third of the transverse colon. In this capacity, it is involved in, amongst other things, such varied tasks as heart rate, gastrointestinal peristalsis, sweating and speech (via the recurrent laryngeal nerve).

The vagus also controls a few skeletal muscles, namely:

* levator veli palatini muscle
* salpingopharyngeus muscle
* stylopharyngeus muscle
* palatoglossus muscle
* palatopharyngeus muscle
* superior, middle and inferior pharyngeal constrictors
* muscles of the larynx (speech).

This means that the vagus nerve is responsible for quite a few muscle movements in the mouth and also is vitally important for speech and in keeping the larynx open for breathing.

It also receives some sensation from the outer ear and part of the meninges.

The vagus nerve and the heart

Parasympathetic innervation of the heart is mediated by the vagus nerve. The right vagus innervates the SA node. Parasympathetic hyperstimulation predisposes those affected to bradyarrhythmias. The left vagus when hyperstimulated predisposes the heart to AV blocks.

Re:The vagus nerve (from wikipedia)

[sir lox elroy]

Great I can hear the doctors now, "Whoops, wrong part of the nerve, you will now start sweating instead of feeling good when you get depressed, sorry." or "Whoops, is his heart supposed to be beating like a bass drum, guess it would help if I hooked up the VNS leads to the VNS and not my walkman." :-D

Re:The vagus nerve (from wikipedia)

[Red Flayer]

Paramedics of yesteryear will recall a special way of trying to stimulate a stopped heart into beating through vagus nerve stimulation.

Distension of the rectal sphincter stimulates the vagus nerve; latex gloves come in very handy when trying to revive a heart attack victim.

Re:The vagus nerve (from wikipedia)

[owlstead]

So from the wikipedia article.

"The vagus nerve is arguably the single most important nerve in the body."

Typical. I could also call the outer regions of the brain the most important nerve. Without them I would not have been me. Giving a value to some things just is not worth it. Why would I go and order the nerves in my body for heavens sake?

The word "arguably" only makes it worse. Arguably, sentences containing the word "arguably" should all be removed. The sentence before this one is therefore heading for its own destruction.

Re:I want my tasp! uh Larry Niven reference

[Fox_1]

Wuhoo! Now I can be a wirehead with FDA approval. Why is this Flamebait? My first thought too was of Gil Hamilton's old crew mate's face grinning at him with a wire running from his skull to the wall. Belter tan and all.

Oh Yeah!

[MightyMartian]

I'm really feeling down. I just don't know how long I can ZOT! Hey, I'm ready to rock and roll! I think I'll become president of the world! But that would mean having to find an apartment in a big city, and I wouldn't see my wife and kids very much, and I probably wouldn't get to watch reruns of Enterprise. Gawd, they cancelled Enterprise, I can't believe it, no more Star Trek, that's it I'm going to open this window and ZOT! Hey, good riddance, goddamn Enterprise, crappy acting, crappy stories, thank goodness there's Battlestar Galactica. Much better writing, interesting stories. And there's Doctor Who too. Great remake. But Christopher Eccleston isn't coming back for the second season. It'll fail for sure, then I won't have anything to watch and I'll sit in this apartment reading Slashdot crap on my computer. How can I deal with this? I think I'll tie rocks to my shoes and ZOT! Hey! That's okay, I've always got Slashdot. Maybe I'll get moded +48183 Insightful for this post, become King of Slashdot and supplant CmdrTaco! Oh, but then people will mock me, and call me a shill, and claim I do nothing but post dupes. I can't stand that. I'd rather ZOT! ZOT! ZOT! ZOT! ZOT!

Re:Oh Yeah!

[Guppy06]

Kneel before Zot?

Re:Oh Yeah!

[RandomBitFlipper]

wipes tears from eyes

Man, that was funny! Sure cheered me up.

Re:Oh Yeah!

[twiddlingbits]

Funniest /. post in a long time. ROTFLMAOPIMP.

Who needs a *ZOT* when you got /. :)

OMG, that rhymes!

Re:Oh Yeah!

[varmittang]

ZOT! ZOT! ZOT! ZOT! ZOT! ZOT! ZOT! ZOT! ZOT! ZOT!........THUMP!


Later, at the funeral: CmdrTaco says, "Mr. MighyMartian died of happiness, while reading his beloved Slashdot."

Re:Oh Yeah!

[Hogwash McFly]

I only ever add people to my Friends list solely for funny posts when I'm drunk, but that was so funny I'll make a single, sober exception ;)

I can hear the person in my mind speaking so quickly immediately after each Zot and then gradually slowing down, and the face in my head as I read is Homer Simpson.

Re:Oh Yeah!

[Anonymous Coward]

You would be surprised to know that sometimes it is really like what you describe.
I work in a research lab in a french hospital where Parkinsonian patients (and others) are implanted with stimulating electrodes. The small pacemaker-like stimulator can be controlled by the neurologist and the electrical contacts can be tested one by one, allowing to stimulate some points a few millimeters apart.
There has been a few case of immediate depression (about 20s after beginning stimulation) that stopped when stopping stimulation, and even a very aggressive behaviour during the surgery testing caused by electrical stimulation at about 1cm from the surgical target.

Re:Oh Yeah!

[ccp]

+1, Insightful

Cheers,

Carlos Cesar

Yet nore things treated with electro shocks

[Hachey]

Wow, I can't believe how many things people are constantly willing to throw electro shocks at.

Hmmm, we've tried everything else...well, lets just trying zapping the living crap out of it and see if that helps!


--
Check out the Uncyclopedia.org :
The only wiki source for politically incorrect non-information about things like Kitten Huffing and Pong! the Movie !

Re:Yet nore things treated with electro shocks

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Well...If it works...

IN OTHER NEWS...

[Anonymous Coward]

Researchers have found that pain caused by electric shocks momentarily causes the depressed to forget about their depression.

vague nerve stimulator ?

[Potatomasher]

"The Food and Drug Administration's clearance opens Cyberonics Inc.'s vagus nerve stimulator, "

First read that line as "vague nerve stimulator" and thought to myself "Wow ! The FDA's approving something without really knowing what it does ?!" Wouldn't be the first time i guess ;)

Re:vague nerve stimulator ?

[Desert Raven]

First read that line as "vague nerve stimulator" and thought to myself "Wow ! The FDA's approving something without really knowing what it does ?!" Wouldn't be the first time i guess ;)

You may have read the words wrong, but you got the correct meaning.

The FDA *doesn't* really know what it does, or if it works. They really just don't seem to give a damn about properly validating treatments for mental disorders.

Heheheh

[VectorSC]

I see this, and all I can think is: "Blue Screen of Death."

I was a little concerned...

[Shadow Wrought]

When I saw it was being produced by a branch of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

athletes and soldiers

[peter303]

Competative athletes and the military will try new drugs, bioelectronics, therapies etc. that will give them an edge. Cost and side-effects are minor concerns.

Cyberonics, Inc. are punk rockers

[Recovering Hater]

because this was obviously inspired by:

Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

I was feeling sick I was loosing my mind I heard about these treatments From a good friend of mine He was always happy Smile on his face He said he had a great time at the place. Gimme gimme shock treatment. Peace and love is here to stay And now I can wake up and face the day Happy happy happy all the time Shock treatment, I'm doing fine. The Ramones Rock on Cyberonics!

Bah...it's all Pseudo-science!

[bwcarty]

I refuse to get any electrodes in my brain until Tom Cruise says it's ok.

Brief Terminal Man Review

[mikes.song]

Man gets ecliptic seizure.
Seizure triggers feel-good electricty in brain.
Mans body likes feel-good electricty, and then the body stops the seizures.
Feel-good electricty stops
Man gets ecliptic seizure.
Seizure triggers feel-good electricty in brain.
Mans body likes feel-good electricty, and then the body stops the seizures.
Mans body learns that shaking causes feel-good juice.
Body shakes more.
Body feels good more.
Man starts to rage like he's on PCP.

Now, what could happen
Man gets depressed.
Depression triggers feel-good electricty in brain.
Mans body likes feel-good electricty, and then the body stops feeling bad.
Feel-good electricty stops
Man gets depressed.
Depression triggers feel-good electricty in brain.
Mans body likes feel-good electricty, and then the body stops feeling depressed.
Mans body learns that depression causes feel-good juice.
Man gets sad more.
Body feels good more.
Man starts to rage like he's bi-polor and on PCP.

Re:I want my tasp! uh Larry Niven reference

[Pxtl]

Good to see fellow Niven fans in here. The corresponding Chrichton vehicle that people keep mentioning sounds like his generic "new technology creates monster that runs around killing people" rather than actually exploring the ramifications.

New Treatment for Depression

[Kyru]

Brilliant new treatment for depression: Get Over It! World sucks, things aren't how you'd like them to be: Get Over It! Girlfriend dumped ya, sleeping with your best friend: Get Over It! Apparently living in a modern world means you get depressed a lot, but with my simple plan you just look past the crap and say 'eh, whatever' and Get Over It!

Re:New Treatment for Depression

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be a Tom Cruise fanboy. I suppose you don't believe that there can be chemical imbalances either. How about people that were litterally torquered as a child by someone they loved. Should they "just get over it" as you say. Your lack of empathy is why the world is so screwed up. No one gives a shit about anyone else and then wonders why there is so much violence.

Re:New Treatment for Depression

[Reverend528]

Your lack of empathy is why the world is so screwed up. No one gives a shit about anyone else and then wonders why there is so much violence.

Get over it.

Re:New Treatment for Depression

[Anonymous Coward]

um depression is generally more apathy than sadness, from my experience anyways. sure your sad or whatever sometimes, but predominantly you do get over it. so now im over it, over here. seems kinda similar to where i just was. not much has changed except i care less about things.

the thing is, you get to a point where your best friend sleeps with your girlfriend and you just say, "figures", that is moving on, becuase you just simply dont care. thats the point of moving on right?

oh and the parent isnt Flamebait, he actually has the attitude of someone whoes never been depressed. you cant get over it because you dont have any other idea of where there is to "go". get over it. ok im over it. now what? this is what its like to be happy? i guess.
fucking mods.

Re:New Treatment for Depression

[jswalter9]

Yeah, and those stupid cancer patients. Get over it! And those people with down syndrome? Get over it! There's no reason why they shouldn't be pilots! And don't get me started on those pussies with Alzheimer's... get over it! You can remember everything - you're just faking it, you morons!

Hey, maybe you can tell my life's been pretty badly fucked up by chemical imbalances, too. And to me, what "get over it" means is to finally just commit suicide. But then, that's probably what you meant in the first place.

On entering the airplane

[jurt1235]

Please turn off all electronic devices for take off (and then plunge straight into your depression)

Yes!

[Quiet_Desperation]

I'll take a dozen, please!

Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope these new devices aren't running a Windows based operating system like some BMWs I know. Just think what happens when it blue screens!

Coocoo

[Anonymous Coward]

But Nurse Ratchett, I don't want another treatment!

Re:I want my tasp! ^H^H^H^H^H droud!

[nyrk]

Actually the tasp was the remote version of it, so you could "Make someone's day" by remotely You are thinking of a droud.

What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

And why is it only for the severely depressed? Why can't the merely morose get it, too?

How about those of us who have just realized that our lives are going nowhere, but other than that we're mostly ok? Don't we get any shock treatments?

I think it could help a lot of people get from "mostly happy" to "Wow, this is a great time to be alive!"

And I wonder if it runs Linux.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Alex P Keaton in da]

Will they make one that makes you horny???
Wait... I think I have one of those already.
But I would be down with one that could induce orgasms at the push of a button.... It would make work more fun. I'll ooooooohhhh have oooooooh that ooooohhhhhh report ohhhhhhhh done... done... done... Oh to late....
But maybe this could be a solution, in the long run, to over medication.... We could instead have over- implatation. (not the Pamela Anderson kind)

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Achoi77]

A few years ago one of my friends (who was a med student at the time) was talking about the effects of heroin. He started talking about some experiment (this is a paraphrase, don't quote me on this) where they hooked up some device that connected to the part of the mouse brain that is associated with pleasure. That device was triggered by a switch, to which the mouse could press down on. Whenever the mouse pressed down on the switch, the device would send a little jolt? signal? something to the 'pleasure zone' of the brain, and the mouse would the effects of something apparently similar to the taking a shot of heroin.

At first the mouse would stumble upon it, and *whoops* it got high by accident. Eventually it figured out whenever it pressed the button, it would get high. More and more the mouse would hit the trigger to get high. Eventually the mouse was so severely addicted, it died of starvation as it was violently slamming the button trying to get it's 'fix,' the mouse forgot to eat. (please excuse my grammar)

No idea why this little story came up, I didn't really read your post too thoroughly, and I was thinking about if they did create an Orgasm-on-demand button, how many people would die with wide grins on their faces. I suppose this topic brought up the idea of an addiction. The reason why my friend was trying to tell me that story was because I was trying to quit smoking, and he was talking about how other addictions are far worse than smoking (like heroin), and that smoking is a relatively lighter addiction to control. A pretty clinically sadistic pep talk, that's for sure. :-) And yeah, I quit smoking.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[mranchovy]

Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays.


(even though it's Thursday).

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because depression therapies do not "add happiness." They merely reduce clinical depression (not to be confused with feeling down as we all do from time to time.)

Re:What about the rest of us?

[As Seen On LSD]

I think it could help a lot of people get from "mostly happy" to "Wow, this is a great time to be alive!"

Anti-depressants don't make you happy, they just make it harder to be depressed. Similarly, treating non-depressed people with this device would not make them happier. It would likely make them emotionally dulled, incapable of feeling anything, including happiness, just as non-depressives that take anti-depressives report experiencing.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[TheLink]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3241138.stm

http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,416 82 ,00.html

So far it's for women, but I don't see why there wouldn't be a similar one for guys.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[ScrewMaster]

"Soma! Soma! Soma! Soma! Soma!"

I'm afraid...

[robyannetta]

When these new devices error, they'll be a lot of emotionally challenged people muttering the name Sarah Connor.

Definition of wirehead

[phorm]

(for whomever labelled this as flamebait)

This is a reference to Niven's universe, I've heard it first mentioned in the book "Flatlander." Basically, a wirehead is somebody who has become a current addict. A hole is drilled into the skull, and a wire inserted into the pleasure center of the brain.

The end result is that the person becomes addicted to the pleasure supplied by the device, worse than a cokehead or heroin addict.

Addiction should be something we should be careful of, we don't need "wireheads" outside of book-worlds.

Re:Definition of wirehead

[nyrk]

Actually, as far as classes of addicts, wireheads would be the easiest to deal with. There is no illegal supply chains for the trafficers to maintain. No one needs to be killed over a few miliamps of electricity. And the wireheads tended to conveniently remove themselves from society, and wither away in privacy, starving themselves to death in a state of bliss. Compare with heroin, crack, meth. converting all our addicts to this would be a boon to society.

Re:Definition of wirehead

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

No one needs to be killed over a few miliamps of electricity.

You don't have any idea how bad the electricity prices are here in Nevada.

Re:Definition of wirehead

[name773]

i sincerely hope that this new device is applied only to people who need it and aren't adverse to such things..

but anyway, the type of addiction you mention is also bad because it keeps them from really doing anything whether positive or negative. kind of a waste of life really

Re:Definition of wirehead

[Some_Llama]

"Compare with heroin, crack, meth. converting all our addicts to this would be a boon to society."

So would you be in favor of legalizing all drugs?

Same outcome...

Re:Definition of wirehead

[nyrk]

Actually, yes. As long as a person is a a legal adult, what business does a government have telling them what they can or cannot do with their bodies? Legalize it, and tax it. Then test for its presence where its use would be dangerous to other people.

Re:Definition of wirehead

[le_defaut_tragique]

I don't know, man. Most wireheads I've known have been disturbingly antisocial. Personal experience with uppers has boiled down essentially to "terrifyingly real" leading to a scary near-psychotic state (Amphetamine psychosis). YMMV, of course, but a society of that sounds potential very very scary.

A society of opium smokers on the other hand would be incredibly benign but unproductive.

Re:Definition of wirehead

[Hosiah]

(for whomever labelled this as flamebait)

And I might add, anybody who sees a story about plugging a device into your skull to electrically stimulate the pleasure center of the brain and doesn't immediately flash on tasps, wireheads, Larry Niven, and Louis Wu (the most famous recovering wirehead of Known Space; so painfull his withdrawals were, that he'd risk a kzin's ire to get his fix!) probably has stumbled onto Slashdot by mistake, although it's a mystery how such person could get mod access so quickly.

Go READ A BOOK, you surfium illiterum! Next, I suppose we'll see Terry Pratchett references modded down OT in discussions about traveling luggage...

Re:Definition of wirehead

[Some_Llama]

I agree with you, I was just curious how you felt :)

Instead of FUD...

[Jurph]

How about some more factual information? NPR has done several stories on this kind of treatment, and how it is (and isn't) used. This is not "rats push the button to feel good". This treatment involves a very precise electrical impulse delivered to the malfunctioning area of the brain; it is to electro-shock therapy what a bonsai knife is to a lawnmower, so the side effects, while not well-characterized, are likely to be orders of magnitude less intrusive.

It's used in cases where the depression is not treatable with current drugs. These are people who are so seriously neurochemically depressed that suicide seems attractive for the relief it would offer. The best we could give them before was a hug and a doctor mumbling that they were "interesting," until eventually they gave up and killed themselves. Now we can offer them this, which has at least one major advantage over suicide.

Re:Instead of FUD...

[JordanH]

The best we could give them before was a hug and a doctor mumbling that they were "interesting,"...

I take it you are denigrating what are known as Cognitive Therapies here. Were you aware that one study has shown that at least as effective as drugs in the treatment of severe depression?

Re:Instead of FUD...

[Anonymous Coward]

It didn't sound at all to me like a critique of CBT. CBT is generally taught as a very vigorous therapy to change thought patterns as quickly as possible. It is very active. The original poster sounded to me like they were describing a more passive style of therapy.

Personally, I think CBT is quite valuable.

Re:Instead of FUD...

[Fegmaniac]

It's important to note that previously the only real treatment for patients that fit into this category has been Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). This is the proverbial "shock threatment" that has been (inaccurately) protrayed by movies such as One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. ECT is reserved for patients whose depression is so profound that they are (often literally) comatose. Medical therapy is not useful in these cases, as it can take up to two weeks for the benefits to manifest themselves. ECT, done correctly, can make a marked short-term difference, allowing them to function long enough for medical treatment to "kick-in".

Interestingly, it was discovered in anecdotal studies which found that epileptic patients had a lower incidence of depression. Current ECT treatment involves sedating the patient and basically inducing a mild seizure under a controlled environment. Both the psychiatrist and an anesthesiologist are typically present to monitor for adverse changes.

If this new device pans out, it may represent an important new treatment for those patients who literally have no hope beyond ECT.

Information on ECT (admittedly, from 1985) from the NIH Consensus panel can be found here.

Re:Instead of FUD...

[Rob the Bold]

The best we could give them before was a hug and a doctor mumbling that they were "interesting"

Lotsa folks don't even get that . . .

Re:Instead of FUD...

[Anonymous Coward]

So what exactly does ECT do to solve depression. How does it work?

In a real science the scientist would aproach this thus 'I noticed that type 82.3 depression has been noted. It is CAUSED by object 23 beig broken.'

In psychology they say 'these symptoms seem to to be similar to this set of symptoms which we have named depression. Sometimes ECT has an effect on depressed people. Maybe ECT will fix it. Let's try and see'

The bottom line is that brain doctors don't have a clue about a. what the problem is, and b how to fix the problem even if they knew what it was.

Human minds are FAR TOO COMPLEX for drs to understand. They barely understand human physiology.

Re:Instead of FUD...

[MenTaLguY]

Generally the combination of medication and Cognitive-behavioral therapies has shown to be the most effective, rather than one or the other in isolation.

Re:Instead of FUD...

[Anonymous Coward]

And just to extend Jurph's excellent factual information, this device has been approved and in use for treatement of epilepsy for 8 years. I spoke with a fellow this week whose wife has one; it reduces her seizures by a factor of 6.

There are some other interesting parallels between epilepsy and mood disorders. Many medications used to treat bipolar disorder are used "off-label" and are actually approved for controlling seizures (e.g., Depakote). And the same gent whose wife has a vagus stimulator mentioned that they could sometimes head off seizures by medicating when they noticed her moods were swinging out of whack.

In any case, I think this is a good step forward. I look forward to the day I can get my zone implant or my wellseeker.

Re:Instead of FUD...

[scottv67]

"Current ECT treatment involves sedating the patient and basically inducing a mild seizure under a controlled environment"

Actually, ECT treatment involves giving the patient a drug which paralyzes the entire body except for one foot (which has a tourniquet on it to prevent the paralyzing drug from getting into the foot). Electrical current is applied to the patient's head until a seizure is induced in the brain. How do you know when the seizure starts? By watching the foot that is not "frozen". It starts to twitch during the seizure.

So when you say "sedated", the patient is actually paralyzed so their body doesn't move during the seizure.

Also, the use of ECT is not limited to people who are barely functional. It is sometime tried on people who are quite mobile and desperately trying to find a cure to severe depression.

I like the part where you said "ECT, done correctly,". When you are talking about paralyzing someone with a drug and then shocking their head until a seizure is caused, how can that be described as "done correctly"? If you did something like this to dogs or cats and the local police found out, you'd be in jail so fast your head would spin.

Re:Instead of FUD...

[aurilieus]

yeah i agree to that .. this device can certainly be used in cases of chronic depression or cases where the subject has had to bear this right from birth due to some chemical or neurological malfunction.Although nothing like a good hearty laugh for acutely depressed cases.Its all in the way you decide about leading your life or more making changes in your behavioural pattern in most of the cases.I am always amazed with the heights of progress we have made in terms of medical advances..
-Heart stopped --->Pace maker
-Lost Arm or legs --->Bionic Arm or Leg (rather Cool..reminds me of ROBOCOP)
-Lost Vision --->what the heck get someone elses(make sure they were dead before doing that though:p)
-Liver Sclerosis---> what are Pigs for
-Find the present times too depressing ---> Not to worry .. Get ur self refrigerated and wake up 200 years later(they actually claim they can do that) only to find every body has found a safe haven on Mars and you are left prancing around with people from Zion...

Medics
Truly amazing !

Re:Instead of FUD...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Cognitive therapy probably isn't used enough, nowdays. But that doesn't mean it can cure everything.
It generaly works best when the disorder was cognitive (learned) to begin with.

Cognitive therapy/CBT are certinaly more than "just talking" solutions. But they're still not a replacement for drugs in many cases.

I'm sure you know that, but many don't (like good ol' Tom and his $cientology friends (Well, actually, his $cientology friends propably do know, but cult policy tells them to preach a different tune)).

Wasn't shock therapy banned? [nt]

[mark-t]

[nt]

Excuse me, sir?

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, sir, but did you just say butt frenzy?

Re:Excuse me, sir?

[hesiod]

> Excuse me, sir, but did you just say butt frenzy?

Yes he did, and for the life of me, I can't figure out if he was intending to say something else...

Re:Excuse me, sir?

[techsoldaten]

Alright, I will explain.

In Judge Dredd, there is a dude with a dial on his head that controls how violent he is.

When the dial is turned up to 4, he goes into butt frenzy mode. Which means he goes around head butting everything in his path.

This story made me think of that.

M

Tom Cruise

[Casca]

How soon before we can get one of these implanted into Maverick's brain?

SP1?

[Corson]

So, when is that Service Pack due again? :)

Treatment of symptoms

[Icarus1919]

Psychology and neroscience are still unsure whether chemical imbalances and faulty electrical signaling are the causes or symptoms of depression. Therefore I'm sure that many people in the medical community consider this a treatment of the symptoms of depression rather than the underlying causes.

This treatment would be akin to getting rid of someone's cough and runny nose and then saying the cold was cured. You haven't cured the cold, you've just stopped the visible symptoms of it.

Re:Treatment of symptoms

[Politas]

Well, heart pacemakers are certainly treating symptoms rather than curing the disease. Does that make them worthless?

There is a point where treating the symptoms is valid. If you remove all the symptoms, then you don't really _need_ to cure the cause, do you?

Linux Mod- crack

[spaztech]

How long until someone mods it to run Linux? This would also add a whole new meaning to the term 0wn3D!!

I can't believe this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is medicine so uninternested in treating the cause? Cause they can't make money. And it is all about money.

Check this out: http://www.eeginfo.com/
This stuff might sould a little quacky, but it works and it works very well. And you don't need to cut into the brain to fix the brain. Look a little searching on labotimies and see what a disaster that was.

Re:I can't believe this!

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Keep your Scientology links to yourself, please.

Louis Wu Redux.

[torpor]

yo, wirehead, get me some coffee..

boink!

good slave. have a femto-second of pure pleasure.

Re:I want my tasp! uh Larry Niven reference

[SatanicPuppy]

Heh. My first thought was from Douglas Adams:

Having fun: this is the big section. It is impossible to have more fun without electrocuting your pleasure center... --SL&TFATF

It's safe and confidential treatment

[Quiet_Desperation]

Because what happens in vagus stays in vagus.

personal experince

[rctay]

I've suffered from major depression for 15 years. I'm one of the roughly 30% that are non-responsive to SSRI's. ECT can require up to 2 weeks hospitalization while you are treated 5 or 6 times. It's a confusing period with large memory gaps that may return over time. It's a crap shoot. Some patience require re-treatment after 6 months, some it never helps and memory loss can be permeant. The thing about VNS is early studies indicate success in the 30% range, and that can takes months. Many of those reporting success rate it as moderate. I would have to pay out of pocket for this device, $25,000, plus regular adjustments. Insurance companies aren't touching this for depression now.

Can we get...

[kabocox]

Can we make it mandated that all telemarketers must have this product installed and if they don't remove a customer from there call list when asked or violate a do not call list, all the telemarkters at the company, the advertisers and the CEO of the maker of the product get shocked.

O.k. I want it hooked up to the pain centers... O.k. we can do one for the pleasure center, and they get a mental orgasm when they remove some one from their call list and if they go a month with out crossing the do not call list.

Originally for Epilepsy

[CarlJagt]

I may be wrong, but the VNS (vagus nerve stimulator) was originally marketed as an implantable solution to control certain forms of epilepsy (mostly clonic-tonic or grand mal seizures). My wife and I sat with a few specialists years ago while considering such a measure to help curb her epilepsy.

The advice we ultimately adopted was that the VNS had too low a success-rate in reducing seizures (even in some cases increasing seizure ativity). That it would help those suffering from various physiological depressions was mentioned as a passing thought.

The VNS is implanted under the skin with leads connected to the vagus nerve -- the device could be manually activated by positioning a magnet over the implant. For epileptics, this was the thing to do when the aura (premonition) came. However, my wife has never had aura before a seizure, so the ultimate benefit was moot (what with my time machine being broken, and all.)

Personally, mild electric shock therapy *could* be of benefit, but mostly I suspect the manufacturer, having lost the "VNS cures epilepsy" headline, are going for a second (but much larger) market.

Your mileage will vary.

Re:Originally for Epilepsy

[Anonymous Coward]

what with my time machine being broken, and all.

I hear you, mine is stuck in 'forward' doesn't go back, not in the least.

Have you actually *read* Harrison Bergeron??

[sczimme]

Can you say Harrison Bergeron? I though you could.

You could say that, but you would be wrong:

- The handicap helmet George Bergeron wore in the essay emitted sounds, not electric shocks.

- The helmet was designed to keep George down, i.e. to disrupt his brain/thought patterns, not to resolve any problem he might have had (unlike the device in the article).

One of many places to read Harrison Bergeron in its entirety.

Re:Have you actually *read* Harrison Bergeron??

[Anonymous Coward]

"The helmet was designed to keep George down, i.e. to disrupt his brain/thought patterns, not to resolve any problem he might have had (unlike the device in the article)."

one persons problem is another persons virtue. I couldnt do my job without constantly thinking of worst case scenarios. If I had a sunnier disposition, I might not be as worried about some little thing that ends up crashing a bunch of servers. Just wait till things like this are mandated to get the job you want, or for insurance covereage.

Got soma?

Re:Have you actually *read* Harrison Bergeron??

[exegene]

In the short story, the mental handicapping device uses sound, yes. In the movie however, while only the briefest of explanations are given of the handicapping devices' operation, they seem to involve some kind of electronic technomagic. IINM one of the movie's characters is made into a barely functioning slab of meat by cutting certain neural pathways.

This newly approved device does not "resolve any problems [the patient] might have," it applies current to some part of the brain. That is, how and why it works, the patient likely has no clue. The doctor likely has only a slightly larger clue. Even the designers of the device are likely to not have a full understanding of how the thing works, because the brain is far from understood.

That is, the device does _something_ to the brain; just trust me, it'll make you all better. That's the sort of blind faith requirement that should be given close scrutiny, because the brain is too vital an organ to hand over to just anyone and because the black box nature of the device allows it to be a wonder medicine just as well as a horrible mind control device. While it is unlikely that both anyone has yet made a device similar to that used in /Harrison Bergeron/ and is secretly implanting it in the USA's morbidly depressed, the possibility of such or something similarly nefarious should not be thrown out without consideration.

Re:Have you actually *read* Harrison Bergeron??

[crazyphilman]

Let's go conspiracy theorist for a moment and consider how these things might be funded.

Some doctor has a theory. "Hey, they use electroshock to treat depression. What if we put a little gizmo in the person's head so that we could automate the zapping, and do it several times a day?"

They propose this. A reasonable person would say, "That's fucking stupid. No way".

But SOMEBODY approves the research and it gets funded.

What if, and this is just hypothetical, mind you, what if there's someone in the government whose job is to keep an eye open for things like this that might one day be "repurposed"?

Such a person might fund the research and make sure it's turned into a viable device. He might then nip off with all the designs and initial test data (erm... the "clinical results" I meant to say) and at that point, if the device fails in the market because people don't WANT electrodes in their brains, well, that's not his problem anymore.

Then, thirty years from now when everyone involved is too old to go to prison, they'll announce that they had this program of putting little electroshock implants into "suspected terrorists and dissidents". There'll be a brief scandal, but nothing much will happen (just as with the Tuskegee experiments and the injection of plutonium solution into terminal patients back in the '40s).

Of course, by then, they'll have nanotechnology and won't NEED implants.

looking forward

[RAS 230]

I'm a little doubtfull about the benifits of this treatment but hopefully we'll start to see more devices for our brains. what I'd really like to see is something to aid memory, but I guess this is a start. the sooner people get used to the udea of having there brain plugged into something the sooner we get to some real advancements

congratulations ..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. you just proved the power of celebrity.

know how many celebrities are on the Big Drug Co. payrolls, keeping the "your brain on drugs" memes among the sheep alive?

[hint: many.]

thank you tom cruise for standing up among the mob and pointing out the obvious: neuroscience is a huge con.

Re:congratulations ..

[hesiod]

> know how many celebrities are on the Big Drug Co. payrolls [...] hint: many

Please name one, with some proof.

> tom cruise for [...] pointing out the obvious: neuroscience is a huge con.

I don't believe that is his intent, or else he would not buy into a much bigger con, namely scientology.

If a president had this in him

[zymano]

Could lobbiest program the president from home instead having to go DC and waste time ?

You know what works much better for depression?

[TheDarkener]

POT!

No, I'm serious. Bang a pot on a depressed person's head and watch them change moods almost instantly!

Re:You know what works much better for depression?

[Xjavier]

True, but Pot is something that wouldn't make much money off you, as once legal, you could grow it in your home. Better to keep pot illegal and make you pay for stuff like "brain pacemakers", or ant-depressant pills that must be fabricated in order to make the rich people even richer.

high rates of depression in the US?

[peter303]

There was recently a NIMH report of mental illness in US stating up to a quarter of the population becomes clinically depressed sometime during their lifetime (old age and teens particularly vulnerable). This number sounded high to me, but I dont have a way of verifying it. I sometimes wonder if there is a "lobby" of psychotherapist and drug companies that "enhances" these numbers. Even googling for a URL to this study return a barrage of side-bar ads for therapists and drugs.

Gimme, Gimme, Shock Treatment!

[bad_outlook]

Ah, but all joking aside, shock treatment is nothing like the "One Flew Over The Coocoos Nest". I have a friend who went though the procedure after being hospilized for a week, and the change was dramatic. After 12 treatments (each lasting about 20 mins) over two months, they were a different person. If you're hitting bottom, something like this 'jump starts' your mood again, to where meds can maintain you, whereas meds would take much longer. Thus I think an implant would be idea. The only downside of the treatment was some short term memory loss, but that was a small price to pay. Oh, and it's a very gently 'shock' and not one that the patient feels under soft sedation.

Like that rat experiment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the same thing like in that experiment where a rat could press a button and send current to the "pleasure" area of its brain, and it ended up hitting the button frantically until it died of starvation? (Like a crack addict.)

FDA Aproval?

[adolfojp]

What I really need is Thethan approval.

What Would Tom Do?

Cheers

Adolfo

Good alternative to Electroconvulsive Therapy

[Orion83]

The mechanisms for changing depression are very similar to Electroconvulsive Therapy. http://familydoctor.org/058.xml/ From my own research and experience(I have an MA in Psychology), these treatments are generally effective and a good alternative when nothing else has worked. When you're really depressed, even a small chance of dying is worth being normal. Movies have really demonized Electroconvulsive Therapy because it is such a horrible proccess to watch and is so dramatic, but in reality, the patient almost never remembers any pain, and the results can save really depressed people from suicide. Anyway, maybe this can take ECT's place since it doesn't have the same negative connotations attached to it, and potentially helpe alot of people.

Re:Good alternative to Electroconvulsive Therapy

[BDZ]

Actually, just wanted to point out that ECT isn't anything horrifying or disturbing to watch these days.

The patient is put under general anthesia and given a muscle relaxant so when the seizure occurs they aren't hurt. Usually a cuff is put on one ankle so the medical staff can see when the seizure takes place.

There is no pain to remember.

I had it done many, too many times (but that is a different post). Worst physical effect I ever had was a light headache after the fact. There is no memory of the procedure. My last memory was the nice nurse putting the oxygen mask over my mouth and nose and everything going fuzzy. Next memory is coming to in the recovery room and usually being hungry and thirsty since you fast before the procedure due to the anthesia.

No one who I knew having the procedure done as well ever reported any other physical effects.

Of course, whether it works for the patient and the side effects of memory loss are another story.

Re:Good alternative to Electroconvulsive Therapy

[scottv67]

Actually, just wanted to point out that ECT isn't anything horrifying or disturbing to watch these days.

Gotta disagree with you there. I watched a documentary a few years ago on how ECT is currently perfomed. It showed the whole treatment.

Watching the doctor shock a patient (in the head!) who was paralyzed until that one foot started twitching really turned my stomach. So, yes, it was disturbing for me to watch. And I am not usually squeamish.

I've very glad that the treatment has provided relief for you. (No sarcasm). I think you are in the minority when it comes to "successful ECT patients"

But that documentary showed the treatment and then people who's life have been made worse by ECT because it wiped-out their memories, drastically changed their personalities and made them into drones.

You know, it was less than 100 years ago that doctors through they were helping patients by pushing a sharp instrument up the patient's nose and scrambling a part of the brain. Thankfully that practice has gone away. As I said in an earlier post, I hope I live long enough to see ECT exist nowhere other than a history book.

Re:Good alternative to Electroconvulsive Therapy

[BDZ]

Actually, I'm one of the people who ECT did nothing good for. Big waste.

Finally have found something that helps, and it figures it's a drug that was originally FDA approved back in 1960. Don't know why such was never tried, but then the docs tend to be brainwashed by all the goodies and free lunches from the drug reps and so they focus only on the bright new drugs and then jump to ECT when they all fail, or when they believe they need to get results ASAP (like in a hospital and the patient's insurance company is screaming to get him out the door. But then hospitals and insurance are a whole other story).

I've never told anyone to not get ECT, but I've told people my story and told them to really research it as well as they can and to consider it deeply before undergoing it.

For me I've lost a solid two years surrounding the treatment periods and my long term memory stretching back to childhood is kind of like swiss cheese sadly. Also, and very bad I think and probably most Slashdotters would agree, is I lost most of the memories of how to do what I earn my living as -- a programmer. I've had to relearn tons of things. Not fun.

On the other hand I have known a couple people who had the treatment and for them it was like throwing up the blinds on a dark room to let the sun in. Others, like myself, had no relief of smyptoms but still paid in memory loss.

I honestly don't know how prevalent long term memory loss is for patients in general. I was only warned of losing memories from the period of treatment as short term memory is affected and thus no long term memories are formed. Well, few at least. I do recall bits from those two years, but mainly the memories are snap shots having no relation to one another.

I was originally told my lost long term memories would return shortly. Then it would be weeks. Then several weeks. Then months...And now the doc really doesn't want to discuss it. I figure they are probably gone. Weird thing is I don't know the true extent. You don't realize you are missing a memory until someone mentions something from the past but you have no recollection of what they are talking about. Or, sometimes it's just the realization that something is familiar but you can't pin it down. Like knowing you saw a movie, but not being able to recall the plot for the life of you.

Personally speaking, I've also had related problems with cognition. I fear I'm not as sharp as I once was. And I have a very odd inability now to visualize objects in three dimensions and rotate them. Not a real big deal I guess, but recently a two minute job replacing the wiper blades on my vehicle took 20 minutes b/c I couldn't visualize how things needed to be moved and fitted. That was frustrating.

Yes, I know what you're talking about with that pin trick. Lobotomy with a hat pin up the nose or through the eye socket. That sounds like something nightmares would be made of.

And, I hadn't thought of it like that, but I can see where watching the whole twitching foot thing while the rest of the patient's body is inert would be kind of creepy.

Shock therapy already used for depression

[twigles]

My wife is a psych major, so I've been regaled with stories of how people who are severely depressed undergo shock treatment. Yes, the shock treatment from yesteryear's mental wards, like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Apparently it actually works quite well.

A drawback is the loss of long-term memories - for good. But they have patients on tape saying they don't care; before the shocks they couldn't get out of bed because they were so depressed.

Something from a Larry Niven novel

[rdf]

This reminds me of something from a Larry Niven novel (wirehead?)

what's next?

[lawrenqj]

Can I get a caffeine pacemaker for work?
Every once in a while my caffeine levels drop below an ideal level.

Also in the works:

[rscrawford]

The "Smithers Injection".

"Mr. Smithers? But I thought you were gay!"

"No, I'm not, as long as I take these injections every ten minutes." *poke* "GYAARGHH!!! Woo hoo, I love boobies!"

Seriously, though. I only suffer from mild depression, so I'm certainly not going to be looking into getting a vagus nerve stimulator, but I know people who are unable to function at all due to their messed up neurochemistries, and whose depression has resisted all treatments, medical and therapeutic. This is excellent news for those people.

I can't help but wonder, though, what future developments we might see that are similar to this one. The "Smithers Injection" -- either chemical or neuroelectrical -- is certainly not likely to ever come to pass (much to the dismay of the American Taliban), but this certainly opens new worlds of psychiatric interventions.

Didn't Stimpy already invent this?

[chinard]

http://ladydeathtouch.tripod.com/invention/

Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!

Please keep up at the back!

[BigBadBus]

This was on the BBC news website a few weeks ago!

Does this work on robots?

[ehiris]

No, it won't!

They're going to be covered by SS

[crovira]

In fact they'll be compulsary.

Its part of the Bush plan to reform social security.

It''l bne fun. There'll no more old folks bitchin' about how it was better 'way back when.' And no more payments to make upon retirement. Nobody will be retiring.

And the technology to do it all will be a little injector you carry around inplanted in your palm. It will be able to shock and inject all sorts of things.

Eventualy, you'll get to screw a young Farrah Fawcett look-alike, except the girls, unless they want to, and get to know a young guy, everybody left will be young, name of Logan.

RSOD Here We Come

[burdicda]

Running on Longhorn of course
Red Screen Of Death
Literally.....LOL

Don't you even listen to Tom Cruise?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a severe measure which would be used to treat people who have actual, chemical things wrong with them


There is NO SUCH THING as a chemical imbalance. These folks just need vitamins.

Try to keep up.

Re:Don't you even listen to Tom Cruise?

[dubbreak]

There is NO SUCH THING as a chemical imbalance

I should just write this AC off as a troll but many people think this way. Vitamins will no help the fact that all your seratonin is being re-uptaken into the neuron instead of making it to the receptor. Yes St. john's wort and some other vitamins have been helpful to some people, but not for people with severe clinical depression. We are talking about people who have brains that aren't sending signals correctly. Different neurotransmitters just aren't being recieve or recieved in high enough quantities to perform properly.

I am sure people who don't suffer from clinical depression would also get some sort of a "lift" from ssri's and mao inhibitors, but for those who need it it's the differenence between: not being able to concentrate, not be interested in anything, being entirely apathetic, having social anxiety, no sexual appetite, frequent sadness... etc
and
acting like a normal person (or 90% of one at least).

Oh And when I list symptoms I don't mean one, i mean all at the same time. Unless you have experienced severe clinical depression you will just write it off as someone that needs to change their outlook in life (and to be fair there are many people who are just that way and don't need medical treatment), however it is not your place to decide what someone does or doesn't need, leave it to the medical proffesionals. Researches may not know much about brain function yet, but they know a lot more than Tom Cruise or anyone else not in the field who will just spout their opinion at will on something they know nothing about.

Re:Don't you even listen to Tom Cruise?

[Savantissimo]

Botanicals shouldnt get lumped in with vitamins. St. John's Wort is a mild MAO inhibitor, I believe. Some other plants like Syrian Rue are strong MAO inhibitors. If seratonin is low due to a lack of precursors, then some supplements such as lecithin or choline might help. Sleep disorders are usual in depression and seem to be as much a cause as an effect, so natural sleep aids such as melatonin may be helpful. And sometimes improved body health will pull the mind along with it, so vitamins should not be written off entirely, although diet in general is more important. A relatively steady blood glucose damps mood swings. Excercise often helps, as do yoga, breathing meditation, and similar activities that increase the oxygen available to the brain.

Also the standard antidepressants are not that much more effective than placebos in clinical trials - certainly less than five times better, generally less. A significant number of people will do better with placebos than they would with nothing - and they get fewer side effects. The belief that you are doing something to improve your state of mind has an effect by itself.

Sounds like the V-Chip

[dubdays]

Doesn't this kind of sound like the v-chip inplanted into Cartman in the South Park movie?

Mine goes up to 11!

[Yaztromo]

It just has to be said...

"You see, most blokes will be playing at 10. You're on 10, all the way up, all the way up...Where can you go from there? Nowhere. What we do, is if we need that extra push over the cliff...Eleven."

Yaz.

by way of comparison ...

[Heisenbug]

Zoloft, IIRC, took 3 tries to find a study where it performed better than placebo, and when it did it wasn't all that much better (has *some* effect on 70% of cases, or the like). I may be misremembering, but the point is sound -- *all* depression treatments at this point have pretty high fail rates, and if you've seen serious depression, you know that *any* new tools are welcome.

Elsewhere it's been pointed out that truly successful depression treatments could mask problems in our society, the same way that truly successful cancer treatments could mask pollution problems. That's true -- but if your mother is dying of cancer, it's sure hard to care ...

Re:by way of comparison ...

[mutterc]

That's why I always use double-strength placebos for my depression treatment - they work great!

Shortcut past chemicals

[smilinggoat]

Drug treatments for depression are basically just stimulating parts of the brain chemically, right?

So then this would just be a shortcut. And if pinpointed accurately enough, hopefully avoid some of the nast side-effects which chemical treatment can cause.

DUDE....

[Anonymous Coward]

....that was the stupidest comment in Slashdot history.

all you need is exercise, good diet, and 5-htp

[Anonymous Coward]

- the big pharma way of life is a quick path to misery and death.
- better to move, eat healthy, and get more serotonin flowing.
- of course, big pharma makes nothing if people take care of themselves...

Correlation to South Park

[neenbeenbaby]

Does this remind anyone else of the South Park Movie in which they put a chip in Cartman's brain to send him shocks whenever he swore? Well geez, everytime I hear about this new technology from now on I'll be doomed to think "Horse Fucker"...

...who have run out of treatment options

[Anonymous Coward]

"...who have run out of treatment options"!!!!?!?!???

from the VNS Therapy page
"VNS Therapy is indicated for the adjunctive long-term treatment of chronic or recurrent depression for patients 18 years of age or older who are experiencing a major depressive episode and have not had an adequate response to four or more adequate antidepressant treatments."

Been there, done that.

[darkonc]

In grade 1, I kept on falling asleep in class. My final solution was to carry a D-cell in my pocket, and touch it to my fingers every once in a while 'for energy'. It seemed to work.

Hey! I was 6, OK?

Re:Been there, done that.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yes, it's obvious that you were only six, else you would have knowen that a 9v battery to the toungue would have worked much better ;)

What comes to mind is...

[drax62]

... Larry Niven's "Ringworld".
Now we are going to have "current addicts", besides potheads and such.

Well....

[Anonymous Coward]

...I, for one, welcome our new pacemaking, mind controlling overlords.

Wow!

[csmacd]

Who needs the pacemaker when the Oracle is around to Zot you that much?!?!?

Praise to the Oracle!

Your comments are depressing

[cohomology]

I read through many replies to this article (but not all) and was saddened by what I saw. Nobody here seems to understand that depression comes in different severities: from a mild disturbance in mood that passes on its own to a disabling, often fatal disease. It can be so severe that doctors sometimes misdiagnose it as some form of brain injury like a stroke.

I chalk it up both to your ignorance, and the unwillingness of the public to discuss mental illness. Chances are, somebody in your family has suffered a serious mental illness, even if you don't recognize it or call it that. Talk to people; you'll be surprised by what you hear.

Re:Your comments are depressing

[scottv67]

True dat, true dat.

Louis Wu

[elmegil]

I have always wanted to be a wirehead with my very own TASP.

marvin the paranoid android

[joelanders]

can it be implemented in robots?

Sounds like a book...

[KD5YPT]

... this sounds disturbingly like the character in "The Terminal Man"...
He went crazy when his mind got addicted to calming shock, and his brain keeps trying to go into a seizure because of that.

No Control Group?!

[citizenc]

Still, critics have complained that without a comparison group, it's unclear if the implant really helped or the depression eased for some other reason.

Did I miss something here, or did the FDA just approve a treatment that wasn't tested against a control group?!

Re:No Control Group?!

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Probably because the control group would have topped themselves by the end of the trial.

Seriously though, I imagine that they might not be allowed to knowingly not treat someone with this level of depression, as it might endanger the person's life.

They should try Art of Living

[Steeltoe]

PLUG MODE ON

The Art of Living courses have strong scientific findings for curing depression among other illnesses. Especially the breathing technique "Sudarshan Kriya" has been studied alot in research, with positive results in independent studies.

These courses are held world-wide to fix stress and other modern-world related syndromes. We're just not living life as it's meant to - to be fun - to be a piece of art to admire, that's why our bodies develop all these sickness. To make us come back to ourselves, unless we ignore it too late.

With the medicines and food available to us now, we should be MORE healthy than ever. However, people are falling into a trap, which luckily is easy to come out of.

Well, it has helped me alot, so give it a go today.

PLUG MODE OFF

Is it worth pointing out that...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...info copied wholesale from Wikipedia, and largely irrelevant to the story, really ought not to be modded up.

Re:Is it worth pointing out that...

[HCIdivision17]

No. In fact, that data is helpful in understanding the device. The implications of messing with such an important nerve are harrowing. Think about it: while we can be sure the doctors will do a decent job installing the device (hence the training required), will it stand up to everyday use? Under what circumstances will the device take damage or fail? And the possible side-effects already humously commented on may actually be of concern. Try to discern the difference between trivial and pertinent data next time.

Re:Is it worth pointing out that...

[Frangible]

After reading the article I was naturally curious about the vagus nerve because I like to understand the mechanisms of how things work. I figured I'd might as well share my findings, which I clearly stated were from Wikipedia in the title, as I assumed I wasn't the only person on Slashdot who likes understanding things better.

I certainly wouldn't call it irrelevant to the story, in fact I'd call in integral, especially the part about vagus nerve stimulation and the heart when you consider the sympathetic effects of nerve stimuation.

Re:I want my tasp! ^H^H^H^H^H droud!

[Fox_1]

yeah the tasp is wireless, but the grandparent used the word wirehead in the body of the comment

My brother has this implant- and it seems to help

[cbelt3]

After seeing the flood of speculation and information based misunderstanding so endemic to a /. discussion, I thought I'd add a personal comment.

My brother is 45 years old, and has had severe epilepsy since he was 3 years old. He is also learning disabled and orthopedically handicapped. Epilepsy, as you may or may not know, is the brain's equivalent of a 'lightning storm'. The cause varies, and the most common treatment is a combination of drugs and surgery to reduce either the beginning of the epileptic seizure or slow the propagation of the wave of activity across the cereberal cortex.

In many patients, drug therapy has to be regularly fine-tuned or completely changed. Think of it as regular security patches, because the brain figures ways to hack around the chemical defenses. In some patients, the brain is so good at hacking through the barriers that drug therapy loses effectiveness. This happened to my brother.

An FDA approved treatment for patients in this condition is the use of a Vagal Nerve Stimulator (VNS). He has a controller/power source implanted in his shoulder, a wire threaded up inside his neck, and the eletrode implanted next to the Vagal Nerve. This nerve is down in the brain stem / 'hindbrain'. Every 5 minutes the controller sends a signal(started at 250mv, it's up to 500mv) for 30 seconds into this electrode. If we want to, we can command a pulse our of sequence by passing a strong magnet over the controller.

The results have not been Science Fiction Movie class miraculous, but they have been visible. For the first few days he would physically react to the pulses (facial tick/jerk, shoulder hunch, etc..). After three months, he no longer reacts as visibly.

But, his grand mal seizure activity has dropped. His petit mal seizure activity has dropped as well. He's improving ! He is more alert, vocal, communicative, and is cracking jokes once again.

I don't know how it will work on depression, but I can tell you from personal observation that it seems to work for epilepsy !

Terminal Man

[norminator]

Actually, his brain subconciously trained itself because the shocks gave it a kind of high. Pretty good book, kind of short.

More people might recognize the author (Michael Crichton) as the author of Jurassic Park, by the way.

Clapping Before the Performance

[Doc Ruby]

Personally, I always prefer just rubbing my hands together and cackling. The vagus nerve terminates in the palms, and I feel like I'm setting up sympathetic vibrations in the nerve symphony that beats over my heart, and into my mind.

Orgasmatron Finally Completed!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm impressed that the inventor had time to write how it worked. He's probably in an institution pressing his own button.

Will this become our Soma?

[Calyth]

I certainly hope that it won't end up that everyone gets implanted with stuff like this since birth... It would be like conditioned to take Soma a la Brave New World.

Re:I've been stimulating my gf's vagus nerve for..

[Koiu Lpoi]

You're on Slashdot. Liar.

one step closer to Woody Allen's

[iggymanz]

Orgasmotron

I have watched ECT being done

[Anonymous Coward]

About 10 years ago, I worked in a Psych ward and used to escort patients down to the recovery room where ECT ("shock") was done so that there would be a familiar face around the whole time. Forget about Cucoo's Nest. That type of ECT was about 10 years out of date even when that movie was made. As of the mid-90's (and presumably still) it was always done under general anethesia. An additional drug inhibited the physical aspeects of the seizure, so you would only see some tension, maybe a toe would wiggle. The procedure took maybe 5-10 minutes. A series of 4-6 treatments(one per day for so many days) was the usual course of treatment.

Obviously, this is not your first choice if you are feeling a bit low. However, for severely depressed people who have not responded to the other stuff-"talk" therapy, SSRIs, Tricyclics, MAOIs- it can work wonders. I have seen it work wonders. Sometimes with memory issues, not always, and usually only memories around the time of treatment -BFD.

As for treating the cause, keep in mind that we can never even be sure what that is. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Social justice? Good luck with that. Meanwhile people are suffering and there is stuff that can help. You don't refuse to treat broken bones because people should be more careful driving!

Anyway, maybe the root cause IS just not enough seratonin.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds ominous, like the plot from a book I read a few months ago called The Terminal Man.

BoogityboogityBOO!

Is Slashdot now reduced to book reports on 1970s Michael Crichton novels?

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Clever material. You've got a potential career in standup or writing for a sit-com.

Re:The vagus nerve (from wikipedia) = let's sing!

[chro57]

So I guess that simply by singing or chewing gum, I stimulate the vagus nerve, and can avoid depression ?

ZOT!

[InThane]

You owe the Oracle a brain pacemaker and a bottle of good vodka.

Re:I for one... (+1 Offtopic)

[barkingcorndog]

We really need something in our /. preferences that filters out all "I for one welcome our new ____ overlords" posts.

Deep Brain Stimulation...

[Peterus7]

My mom works with deep brain stimulation, which is used to treat some neurological disorders such as MS and parkinsons, and also chronic pain disorders. She programs the lead, while the surgeon inserts it.

Anyway, one time they were doing it on a person with severe pain, and the procedure went fine. The pain left him, and he was able to continue his job.

A few weeks later, though, he came in, complianing about depression. My mom was about to perscribe some anti-depressants, but called the surgeon just to see what he thought. They reprogrammed him to one level up, and the depression left the second the pulse changed.

So, if this type of stuff can cause depression, there is no reason it can't stop it.

Although, in the end, how is this much better than pills? In many cases, there are really deep reasons why people are depressed, but in this society we seem content to throw antidepressants around instead of looking towards therapy. The story of the kid who's parents are divorcing, who is placed on antidepressants is much to common. It's just a band aid to cover a festering wound.

No, this is slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

When you play Unreal, your CPU may get hotter, but heating up a CPU does not cause it to play Unreal.

brain

[the_bergler]

All your brain are belong to us!

Smartasses

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest all the wits out there who may be unknowingly channeling Peter Kramers earlier book, read "Against Depression" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670 034053?v=glance
Seems like he's grown up, even if he still places too much faith in anti-depressants to make people better. Speaking as someone who has had this ailment for a long time, I can attest that it is not ennobling, but debilitating.

Experience with the VNS

[H0ek]

Just last month my son had a VNS inserted. This was for epilepsy, and not for depression, and it was quite a trial to be approved for the device. But this was the last resort after years of drug therapy and before major brain surgery for the child. Here's a few observations that might help clarify the whole VNS system:

It is an automatic device that delivers a specific frequency, amplitude, peak duration and general duration of electric shock. There is a "always on" mode where the shock is delivered for 60 seconds, followed by 66 seconds off, repeated indefinately. There is also a mode that is activated with a magnet. This mode is usually programmed to deliver the same frequency and duration, but more amplitude to the shock. The setting of these attributes is done via a PDA and a "wand".

Hackable, I suppose. My curiosity had me wishing for a signal meter to find out the attribute-setting protocol (but dang if I left it at home). But will it solve depression? The only results I've seen are children 10 to 18 who have a life because of this little device. Other than helping regulate seizure behavior, the only obvious side-effect is a slight warbling of the vocal cords. If anything, my boy thinks it's cool that he's now a cyborg and shows off to his friends. He's happy so far, but the real results will come with time.

As was the case for my son, I feel there should be a real medical need before having the VNS surgically inserted. In the case of seizures, it is difficult to operate without some method of control. I have never liked the amount of medications my son needed to refrain from regular seizures, and this seems like a reasonable alternative to having chunks of his brain surgically removed.

If a subject has debilitating depression, then maybe the VNS would be worthwhile for them. But from my perspective, the VNS is a good thing.

Re:Experience with the VNS

[valkoinen]

"...the only obvious side-effect is a slight warbling of the vocal cords. If anything, my boy thinks it's cool that he's now a cyborg and shows off to his friends."

Not only is he a cyborg but sounds like one too? Cool! :)

And nice to hear that it helps.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

With all respect, who the #$%& are you? Why should I believe you? If responding to an AC wouldn't be beneath you, I'd be curious to see what your responses to my questions are.

Re:Huh?

[venicebeach]

Well that doesn't quite sound like it is with all respect, but I'd be happy to answer any question you have - but you haven't asked one.

Re:I for one... (+1 Offtopic)

[jacksonj04]

Regex post filter? Nice idea, would blatz the database servers though.

Epilepsy, depression, BPD... Connection?

[vethia]

Epilepsy and seizure medications (such as Depakote) are also used to treat bipolar disorder, which isn't the same thing as depression by any means but shares some characteristics. I wonder if there's a connection?

Re:Epilepsy, depression, BPD... Connection?

[scottv67]

From my experiences with Depakote and conversations with medical doctors, Depakote is not exactly a narrow-focused drug. It affects many areas of the brain. It is not a very selective medication.

Yes, it is an anti-convulsant. Yes, it is also an effective treatment for bipolar disorder. But I don't think that links epilepsy and bipolar disorder.

The best analogy I could come up with is: Gasoline is a decent solvent for washing paint brushes. Gasoline is also a good fuel for internal combustion engines. But dirty paint brushes and gas engines are not related.

I wouldn't use Depakote as the link that ties "epilepsy" and "bipolar disorder together".

[But there are other anti-convulsants like Neurontin that work on mood disorders as well so that may shoot a hole in my theory.]

Re:Epilepsy, depression, BPD... Connection?

[vethia]

I wasn't saying there was. I was just curious. Thanks for the info.

depression begone

[let1]

1) Select a /. article 2) ctrl + F for (Score:5, Funny) depression gone in 2 minutes tops! (patent pending)

Re:I want my tasp! uh Larry Niven reference

[andygood]

Agreed! My first thought on reading the headline was 'It's a droud!'

the Vega$ nerve?

[GonerDoug]

...So this thing makes me want to waste money on statistically stacked games in the name of weak free drinks and then go to dark strip clubs to gaze drunkenly at plastic women expose themselves for my few remaining dollar bills?

This cures my depression how?

Didn't work in Clockwork Orange

[smchris]

Does it feedback to momentary states? I can see a fantastic market in war, kiddie porn and disaster vids. (Oh! That's awful!) YEAH, BABY!!!

New Treatment for Depression: The Jumping Bridge

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear the new administration has a simpler plan: the famous "Jumping Bridge" plan.

The Jumping Bridge will be available at all times to depressed people within the area. Anyone caught whining, complaining, or behaving like an Unhappy Citizen will be officially labeled a "Grump". All Grumps will be forcibly encouraged to jump off the Jumping Bridge. This also applies to the biological offspring of all Grumps, in order to reduce the risk of the Nasty Grumpy Gene being passed on to the other Happy Citizens.

A few years after the Jumping Bridge is introduced, the Happy Citizens will become tremendously Happy. Panic stricken, perhaps, but Happy! Just as any one of them, and they'ld quickly tell you just how happy they really are!

Isn't that a great idea, Happy Citizen? All those nasty Grumps think otherwise, but we've got a plan for them... you're not a Grump, are you?
--
AC

Do you know anyone who has been depressed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clinical depression like all other diseases is an organic disease. The problem why most people have a real problem seeing this is that the brain is the one organ in our body, that simply by using it we can alter its chemical make up. The difference between clinical depression and normal situational depression (the kind we all get) is that 1) situational is usually associated with an event and 2) it is transient, that is we get better. Clinical depression is a condition where you don't get better furthermore the feelings of despair are not tied to specific events. The end result in clinical depression is a change in the basic chemistry of the brain which we have really yet to figure out. Clinical depression needs to address both the chemical properties of the disease as well as the abnormal thought patters which have arisen as a result of the imbalance. treating depression utilizing only a single modality, talk therapy or drugs alone usually does not work, or when it does it takes significantly longer then a combined approach. Medication begins to correct the chemical problem while therapy effects all the other components. As your thought patterns change the chemical balance will return to normal. At least that's the way it is supposed to happen. For sum no matter what medications we give them we are unable to affect their mood. If we can't begin the process with medication, then talk therapy is significantly more difficult due to the aberrant thought patters. If this treatment works (I've not read the studies so I can't comment on it directly) then there is a new tool for patients who can't feel better otherwise. Just my 0.02 worth

Comparisons

[DynaSoar]

All the SF reference compared with this are wrong.

All the comparisons about deep brain stim, anti-ictal stim, TENS, etc., are wrong. They're similar in that electricity is used. It's different according to the voltage, freqency and placement.

As for the invasiveness of them (except TENS), that's not good, but we're working on it. If we can get TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) to focus down small enough, get a more portable power supply, and get a probe that's significantly smaller than the present ping pong paddle sized device, we'll have a definite improvement over the best available now.

What it's like to fight depression

[Anonymous Coward]

Depression sucks.

Most people find that there's an antidepressant out there that works for them. You might have to try two or three, but eventually one works.

For me, antidepressants worked for a while and then I had a "breakthrough." Alas and damn it, it wasn't the "good" kind of breakthrough. The antidepressant quit working.

After about five or six antidepressants (each more expensive than the last), they wanted to start doubling up -- taking two different antidepressants at the same time.

One of the nasty side effects of the antidepressants is that you lose interest in sex. It was bad enough on one. Two? Nah. I'd rather be depressed. And yes, the loss of interest in sex is depressing in it's own right.

So I just go around depressed. Thankfully, I don't feel like killing myself. I feel miserable, but it's not like there's a choice.It's like the Weird Al song:

So you're never going to find true happiness.
What are you going to do? Cry about it?

This gizmo might be worth a try.

Re:What it's like to fight depression

[Heisenbug]

I hear you -- that's the same story I've heard from a psychiatrist friend of mine. At conferences, they call it "poop-out" -- the damn drugs just keep giving out. After ten years, you're on three instead of one, and it's not working as well.

My friend is into a new treatment called Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy -- have you come across it? It sounds a little wishy-washy when you first look at it, but it's basically just learning to hack your brain. She's looking at it from a front-lines scientific perspective, and seeing some impressive things ...

Re:What it's like to fight depression

[Anonymous Coward]

I might check into it. One of the problems with my current solution is getting the "oomph" to find somethng better.

Wrong way

[zbalai]

A depression can have many reasons: -Having a family member die -Unsuccessful experiences in work -Somebody being extremely rude to one -Having something important lost/stolen -Marrying the wrong spouse -Being fired -Having some kind of tragedy ... Instead of working on it, instead of finding the real why we put an eletric stimulator to our head? Is this the solution? I don't think so. I can even give you the real solution, if you drop a mail to zbalai@yahoo.com.

On-demand shock therapy? Cool!

[grikdog]

Now if we can just push that whisker wire about 2 cm toward nirvana......

Depression is not a disease!

[burbilog]

Depression is not a disease. It's a state of mind and it's a natural defense against problems in human software, not hardware. If you stimulate someone who has depression (it's possible to do with drugs today without jolting brains with electricity) most probably your patient will end up killing himself. Lack of activity works as a safeguard against doing something that will kill you while you are inadequate. So what's the purpose of stimulating people? Increasing suicide rates among them 500% at once and saving insurance company expenses?..

Re:Depression is not a disease!

[Fulg0re-]

Sorry, be depression (chronic or acute) is characterized by decreased levels of norepinephrine (NE) and serotonin (5-HT) in the brain. This causes depressed mood since serotonin is one of the primary neurotransmitters involved in the regulation of mood. How is it when 5-HT imbalances are corrected that the patient's mood's are enhanced? If that's not a disease, then what is?

Re:Depression is not a disease!

[scottv67]

Depression is not a disease. It's a state of mind

I just dropped an envelope containing a ten-spot in the mail. When it arrives at your house, GO OUT AND BUY A CLUE!

Re:Depression is not a disease!

[Fulg0re-]

Sorry to hear about your disease. Nevertheless, you cannot deny the objective evidence with regards to NE and 5-HT (in the locus coeruleus, etc.). With that in mind, we have seen clear objective evidence that drugs such as SSRIs have significantly improved the lives of (and "cured") many people.

I assume that you know some of the drug treatments available; Effexor, Wellbutrin, Zyban, Celexa, Prozac, etc. I also assume that you know that ECT is another treatment option for major depressive disorder refractory to other treatment.

You simply cannot take your single example and suggest that your self-medicating is a solution that will work for everyone. It may (appear to) work for you, but suggesting that you do not have a neurochemical imbalance isn't necessarily objective.

Do you what one of the major causes of death is with people who have major depressive disorder? Suicide. Not a good thing.

Re:Depression is not a disease!

[vorpal22]

Absolutely, but is it possible that 5-HT and NE levels in the brain are influenced through actions? Given the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy (albeit, sadly, this research is lacking in light of our society's lack of desire to embrace such techniques in light of instantaneous solutions like SSRIs / SNRIs that often have long-term consequences), I would conclude that this is very likely the case. I overcame, for the most part, generalized anxiety disorder without medication and via therapy, and hence I believe that it is possible to alter neurochemistry through behaviour.

Re:Depression is not a disease!

[Fulg0re-]

I'm sure that's definitely a posibility, and in many cases, maybe the etiology of the disease.

One of the questions I have to raise, however, is why there is a sudden decrease in NE and 5-HT activity? Because major depressive disorder also tends to run in families, that would suggest that there is some underlying genetic problem where behavioural modification may not always treat the root of the problem.

Ultimately, drugs along with therapy have tended to show the best results. That may of course change the more we learn :)

Re:Depression is not a disease!

[matth88]

So tiring to hear of people coming up with wild statements that are not supported by evidence:

• "not a disease"
• "probably ... end up killing himself."
• "a safeguard"
• "increasing suicide rates 500%"

None of this has any scientific basis. And it's FUD like this that might keep people from seeking treatment. *That's* how people end up getting killed.

Check this out

[rbarreira]

Moderation +4
70% Funny
20% Underrated
10% Troll

There really is at least one moderator who can go and mod this as troll!! Geez!

Anyway, you were already marked as my friend for some time ago, and this post just reinforces it :)

Re:The Terminal Man...Historical Notes

[0xG]

Two great references: This early punk band ("Wasted Youth") had a song called "WireHead" with the refrain:

No more pain, there's a wire in my brain

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Ks5iBSLuLA8J:21 6.194.99.1/portal/forum/viewtopic.php%3Fp%3D8146%2 6sid%3Da7aa55795968a8bc3c4667517b9c6fca+%22no+more +pain%22+%22wire+in+my+brain%22&hl=en [Google cache]

This, in turn, was likeley inspired by Larry Niven's SF short stories about the implanting of "drouds" (this back in 1970!):

The droud was the connector between any wall socket and Louis Wu's brain
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=207

2nd attempt

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for responding. I'll admit that my questions were largely rhetorical. Seriously, though, I'd like to know more about your perspective on mental illness (depression in this case).

At your leisure (since you were kind enough to respond to an AC):

Are you a psychiatrist / psychologist / social worker / scientologist? Are you maybe just a curious reader on the topic of depression?

Re:2nd attempt

[venicebeach]

I'm a cognitive neuroscientist. I do research on how brain function relates to psychology. :)

Depression and the vagus nerve...

[Fulg0re-]

Coming from a medical perspective, I'm finding it a little difficult to understand what exactly vagus nerve stimulation has to do with depression.

Firstly, depression is characterized by decreased levels of norepinephrine (NE) and serotonin (5-HT). They also have a depressed mood or anhendonia, along with 5 other specifiers (according to the DSM-IV) including sleep disturbances, loss of interest, guilt, etc.

Nearly every current line of treatment that I know of has nothing to do with vagus nerve stimulation. And although the vagus nerve has several branches for structures in the proximity of the brain, it hasn't really been shown (as far as I know) to have anything to do with depression.

In fact, drugs which attack the neurotransmitter complications are used. These may include, Venalfaxine (Effexor) is a reuptake inhibitor of 5-HT and NE(?), and SSRIs including Prozac and Celexa, which block the reuptake of 5-HT can also be perscribed. This means that these neurotransmitters remain in their respective synaptic clefts longer, hence resulting in mood enhancement.

The vagus nerve stimulators enhances vagus nerve activity (which is parasympathetic) resulting in heart rate decrease, GI motility and secretion, etc. In other words, things that the body does when it is in a relaxed state. Perhaps their relaxed states result in enhanced mood?

Ultimately, if a patient has severe chronic depression that does not respond to any of these treatments, they have a choice of undergoing electroconvulsive therapy which somehow "resets" the brains, and somehow "resets" the neurochemical imbalance.

Re:Depression and the vagus nerve...

[scottv67]

You post contains all the right buzzwords to make it sound like you know what you are talking about. But your focus is extremely narrow which says that you are probably not a healthcare professional.

There are treatments other than just the SSRI family that affect mood disorders . Also, just because you (or medical science) doesn't understand today how a drug benefits a patient, that doesn't keep the drug from working. See my earlier post on Depakote. It's an anti-convulsant that also happens to work on some folks who have bipolar disorder. Also take a look at Neurontin (which I also mentioned). It's a painkiller but is also being prescribed for a number of "off label" uses including treating mood disorders. Medical science can not accurately describe how Neurontin works its magic for people with mood disorders. But the patients do feel better.

Just because you don't understand how the VNS affect mood does not mean there is not a beneficial effect.

Nearly every current line of treatment that I know of has nothing to do with vagus nerve stimulation.

Just for my own entertainment, what is your medical background and what are the various lines of treatment that you are aware of?

Re:Depression and the vagus nerve...

[Fulg0re-]

Sorry that you feel that way. First of all, I didn't mention that SSRIs are the be-all, end-all treatment options. Far from it in fact.

I believe that I mentioned Venalfaxine (Effexor), which isn't really a SSRI. Heck, we can also give MAOIs; Nardil, Parnate, Eldepryl, etc. Don't forget suicide related to tyramine with those though ;)

Hrm, off the top of my head, we can also use sibutramine which is typically used for obesity treatments, off-label for depression. It blocks the reuptake of our typical three: NE, 5-HT, and DA.

With regards to depakote, those effects are well known for bipolar. We can also give tegretol for that (both drugs usually for the manic phase though). SSRIs are typical for the depressive state.

Anyhow, I already admited my ignorance of the vagus nerve stimulation and of treatments related to it. Perhaps the vagus nerve has some effect in the locus coeruleus? We can sit and argue here all day about what we can use to treat these people and how much we think we know. At the end of the day, although we think we know a lot, we "know" very little and we ought to humble ourselves with that.

mod parent up, informative and insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

doesn't work..

[ylikone]

for everyone... my wife has had severe clinical depression since the age of 12 and she has tried everything (except electro-shock). St.John's wort did nothing for her.

you do not understand clinical depression

[ylikone]

you are only talking about situational depression, which everybody gets sometimes in their life. clinical depression is an imbalance of chemicals in your brain, making you be depressed even when everything is great in your life. you obviously do not know any clinically depressed people and you haven't read any medical books on the subject. don't try and tell people you have an answer... you will only make things worse.

you are wrong

[ylikone]

I have a wife and a sister who are both clinically depressed... and they have both tried talk-therapy only at certain times in their life... and they would both be dead if they hadn't gone back on their meds. I live with this everyday... can't say I understand it, but I do know it's not just a mental state and talking / religion / hypnosis will not fix it.

obviously...

[ylikone]

you know nothing about clinical depression. oh well, you are just part of the ignorant masses regarding mental diseases.

Michael Crichton

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my GOD... that sounds JUST like Michael Crichton's book "The Terminal Man."

Nitpick

[tehdaemon]

Was general relativity too complex for Newton to understand? Is that why he stopped with his theory of gravity?

I agree that they do not understand the human mind. But I an not convinced that the reason is that they are too complex. It is likely that we have just not figured them out yet.

Intelligence severly lacking in these replies

[jt2190]

For a community that touts their "above average" intelligence, Slashdotters are showing more than just a little ignorance of what depression and mental illness really are. Please, take a look at the Mayo Clinic's Very brief description of depression before you post more uninformed blather.

5-HTP

[vorpal22]

I'll second that. Cognitive behavioural therapy did absolute worlds of good for my generalized anxiety disorder, but 5-HTP enabled me to take the strategies learned during my anxiety recovery and take them a step further.

Furthermore, SSRIs take several weeks to build up in the body until they're effective and often demonstrate a large number of unpleasant side effects and withdrawal, whereas 5-HTP works immediately, usually has no side effects (may cause nausea in some, particularly in the presence of vitamin B-6 which metabolizes it as serotonin aka 5-HT, and serotonin receptors in the stomach can be overstimmed), and demonstrates absolutely no withdrawal.

I would never even consider taking an SSRI in light of how effective 5-HTP can be.

crack-toothed grins

[t_ban]

i hope they can control the current very precisely; a few milliamps more or less, and the implantee might turn into a grinning idiot. i also wonder what kind of social life they're going to have, even if the implant works perfectly. i know i would have difficulties talking normally to someone whose responses were being controlled electrically.

So what?

[burbilog]

If your mind is scared, your adrenaline level is increased. Disease too? Are you going to inject something to counter adrenaline instead of using logic or emotions to calm down your software? The same happnes with depression, to treat it properly you have to find the problem in human software. These changes in blood only reflect the situation in the mind.

Spoken like a true armchair general..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but you obviously don't have any a) first-hand or b) textbook knowledge of depression. And no, there aren't any other metrics here; this is too complex a subject for your "intuition" about the way things "should" work to be taken seriously.

You are equating the brain with a computer, dividing it into "software" and "hardware" components; it should be immediately obvious that this is far too simplistic an analogy to even make sense. The brain is ALL hardware. The pathways that determine thought and regulate your mind, while they can sometimes be explained "logically", exist "chemically". They are *physical* pathways.

For someone who is chronically depressed, logic and emotion has *very little* to do with it. They are unhappy for no environmental reason (but knowing that doesn't make it go away). Chemicals designed to regulate mood and energy in the brain are no longer being dispersed at optimal levels. It may (or may not) have *started* as an environmental thing, but you can't put out the fire by stomping on the match.

Btw, one of the most challenging things for someone who is actually depressed is people like you; people who, out of ignorance, think that it is their own fault for just not "snapping out of it", for not "using logic or emotion to calm down their software". That's just not how it works.

Re:I've been stimulating my gf's vagus nerve for..

[mutterc]

Laugh if you want, but in the olden days women would come to the doctor to be gotten off by vibrators; this was the accepted treatment for "hysteria" (=general female complaints, from the (Greek?) hysteros=uterus).

Of course, the women had to come back for repeat visits :-)

(according to some "history of sex" documentary or other on the History Channel I saw once)

Re:I for one... (+1 Offtopic)

[laughing rabbit]

The thing is--this was the first time in 4 years that I have ever gotten this close to first post (not that this drives me). I just didn't want to risk the lame 'fp' that is 10 threads down the page.

I've always slammed my pyschologist sister when she starts talking about the latest therapy as the holy grail of mental health by dragging up electro shock, lobotomy, drugs, and the like to point out that, for the most part those docs know not what they do. I could see this being the next 'hot therapy' and overdone without regard to long term issues.

Yeah, the 'overlord' stuff does get lame and old, but then, so will I.

Since when...

[Cervantes]

Since when did we start treating all depressed people as if they were Marvin?

It was my own experience

[burbilog]

I had to drag out of depression. I did not care about anything and eventually I ignored failing brakes on my car. Luckily they failed completely on the empty road and I found doctor to solve this problem. It's VERY easy to blame chemicals in your blood instead of your own wrong perceptions of the world. "The piano has been drinking... not me. Not me. Not me."

Wirehead references

[lilmouse]

Please! What about wirehead references? After all, if they can improve mood, why not put a wire directly in the pleasure center of the brain?

--LWM