US citizen Amber Pearson used to wash her hands until they bled, terrified by the idea of contamination from everyday items, a debilitating result of her obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
However, the repetitive rituals of her condition are largely consigned to memory, thanks to a revolutionary brain implant that is being used to treat both her epilepsy and her OCD.
“I’m actually present in my daily life and that’s incredible,” the 34-year-old American said. “Before, I was just constantly in my head worrying about my compulsions.”
Photo: AFP
Brain implants have hit the headlines recently with Elon Musk’s announcement that his Neuralink company had placed a chip in a patient’s head, which scientists hope could ultimately allow people to control a smartphone just by thinking about it.
However, the idea of inserting a device into the brain is not new, and for decades doctors have known that precisely applied electrical stimulation can affect the way the brain operates.
Such deep brain stimulation is used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other conditions affecting movement, including epilepsy.
Pearson’s doctors offered her the 32mm device to treat her debilitating epileptic seizures, confident it would be able to detect the activity that causes the episodes and deliver a pulse to interfere with them.
It was then that Pearson herself had something of a light-bulb moment.
“It was her idea to say: ‘Well, you’re going into my brain and putting this wire, and I have OCD, so can you just put a wire for OCD?’” said neurosurgeon Ahmed Raslan, who carried out the procedure at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon. “And you know, luckily, we took that suggestion seriously.”
There had previously been some study of the use of deep brain stimulation for people that have OCD, but it had never been combined with treatment for epilepsy, Raslan said.
Doctors worked with Pearson to see exactly what happens in her brain when she gets trapped in an obsessive loop.
The technique involved exposing her to known stressors — in this case, seafood — and recording the electrical markers.
In this way, they could effectively isolate the brain activity associated with her OCD.
They could then configure her implant so that it would react to that specific signal.
The dual-program device now watches for brain activity associated both with epilepsy and with OCD.
It is “the only device in the world that treats two conditions,” Raslan said. “And it’s programmed independently. So the program for epilepsy is different than the program for OCD.”
It is a breakthrough only someone like Pearson could have come up with, he said.
“This is the first time in the world that’s been done. Usually we think of devices either for OCD or for epilepsy. This idea sits outside of the box and would only come from a patient,” he added.
Raslan said a study is now under way at the University of Pennsylvania to see how this technique can be more widely applied, offering possible hope to some of the 2.5 million people in the US who have OCD.
For Pearson, there was an eight-month wait after the 2019 procedure to see any noticeable difference.
However, gradually, the all-consuming rituals that had taken up eight or nine hours every day since her teenage years began to ebb.
The endless prebed checklists of window-shutting, and the constant handwashing diminished to a manageable 30 minutes a day.
The fear of contamination from eating with others is now gone.
“I’m happy again and excited to go out and live and be with my friends and my family,” she said. “[That] was something I was cut off from for years.”
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
RELEASE: The move follows Washington’s removal of Havana from its list of terrorism sponsors. Most of the inmates were arrested for taking part in anti-government protests Cuba has freed 127 prisoners, including opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, in a landmark deal with departing US President Joe Biden that has led to emotional reunions across the communist island. Ferrer, 54, is the most high-profile of the prisoners that Cuba began freeing on Wednesday after Biden agreed to remove the country from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors — part of an eleventh-hour bid to cement his legacy before handing power on Monday to US president-elect Donald Trump. “Thank God we have him home,” Nelva Ortega said of her husband, Ferrer, who has been in and out of prison for the
RSS