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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
H0ek
Think you're smart? Prove you've got brains!
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?
Politas