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Banjo Used In Brain Surgery
Ponca City, We love you writes "Legendary bluegrass musician Eddie Adcock has undergone brain surgery to treat a hand tremor, playing his banjo throughout to test the success of the procedure. Adcock suffers from essential tremor, a condition where there is a continuing deterioration in areas of the brain that control movement, causing a tremor that usually appears when the person tries to act or move. Deep brain stimulation can be used to treat the movement difficulties of both Parkinson's and essential tremor by sinking an electrode into the thalamus, a deep brain area that is part of the motor loop — a circuit that helps coordinate movement. Surgeons placed electrodes in Adcock's brain and fitted a pacemaker in his chest, which delivers a small current that shuts down the region of his brain causing the tremors. The most sensible thing to do was to tweak the system while Adcock was playing the banjo to optimize the effect for the thing that's most important to him."
I find this both increible and humbling at the same time... incredible because of the patient's bravery and the surgeons ability to get in there and treat his condition. But humbling because it seems like a car engineer repeatedly reving an engine when trying to work out where some squeek or somesuch is coming from. Perhaps one day we'll have scanners that can analyse brain function and guide tiny little robots to make repairs - rather than cut the top of someone's head off while they play the bango.
>> or even consider it irksome noise
On the other hand, if the feeling is specific to banjo noise, the individual is considered normal.
Yes, they're that immature.
Listen buddy, your low UID doesn't mean you're not one of us!