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China's Controversial Brain Surgery To Cure Drug Addiction
kkleiner writes "A small handful of doctors in China are using a highly controversial procedure to rid people of drug addiction by destroying a part of patients' brains. The procedure involves drilling small holes into the skulls of patients and inserting long electrodes that destroy a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. This area, often referred to as the "pleasure center" of the brain, is the major nucleus of the brain's reward circuit. Is it worth being cured of addiction if, losing the addiction, we also lose part of who we are?" The practice has been officially banned, but apparently continues nonetheless.
Most of the West, the U.S. included, was big on this kind of "experimentation" (i.e. lobotomies as a kind of medical treatment) a few decades ago. No need for Hitler here.
On a positive note, much of our current knowledge of how the human brain works comes from destruction of various kinds, either from intentional and misguided treatment or from strokes. The side effects are often interesting.
The first transorbital lobotomy was performed in 1946, one year after Hilter's death.
Lobotomies stopped being routine in the 70's.
The worst thing about this is that it is totally uneccesary. There was a study in the '60s that showed that targeted therapy in combination with psychedelic drugs can cure addiction with a very high success rate (compared to other methods) and almost no side effects. After lsd was made illegal research stopped but recently people have continued the program with ibogaine. The research is still far too preliminary for conclusive results but the fact that a potential treatment exists makes brain surgery even more inadvisable.