DrJBHL

I'm not aware of its use in bipolarity, Tom... if it were only to stop Depression but not hypomania, might not be good... 

One thing for sure: We're only at the beginning - "walking along the seashore, pausing to pick up a pretty shell here and there, while the whole ocean lies before us."

i find with my bipolar... when im depressed, andy takes me outside for a stroll around our town... works wonders..

plus i hate being stuck indoors 24/7 its not healthy for anyone...

I wouldn't trust DBS any more than I do pacemakers.  Obviously they can be necessary, but enough of em screw up to make you worry.

Mind you it sounds like a great idea, just a tiny bit dangerous.

Dr. JBHL....

It looks very much like the VNS... The Vagus Nerve Stimulator... used for Epilepsy. Think of it as a pacemaker for the brain. It sends electrical signals every so often through the left Vagus Nerve to the brain to try an prevent seizure activity. I will be having surgery soon to replace it since it's battery life just went out of service.

I also have MS. Anti Depressants are being taken to help control the temper that can come with Epilepsy. Can this device interfere with the Vagus Nerve Stimulator?

These electronic implants may be a great advance in technology but I have to ask, quite seriously;

If microwaves in public locations can have bad effects on pacemakers, enough so to require warnings, how safe are implanted devices in the brain?

From the OP...

I don't believe they would interfere with each other, TCMM - theoretically... quite distant from each other and the stimuli are very small in output. I don't know of any article about that possibility. BTW... only the "generator/battery" will be changed, not the wires. They'll be left in place.

Dr. JBHL...

I forgot to mention... a person with the Vagus Nerve Stimulator cannot go through metal detectors... be around strong magnetic fields or have an MRI. The VNS can be controlled through a magnet to turn it on if a person feels a seizure is coming on if the VNS is not currently going through its cycle. They can turn it off by taping the magnet to their chests too if they have to for any reason. Is this device also controlled by a magnet?

Sounds disturbing, it doesn't fix an actual problem but uses direct manipulation of emotions to mask symptoms.

It is calibrated to force "positive" emotional states via direct brain cell stimulation with gross electrical signals (neurons transmit on a cell to cell basis), in effect faking electrical impulses from other parts of the brain to fake emotions.

I also cannot see it being effective since the brain is constantly re-calibrating and such repeated stimulation will cause the area to lose sensitivity until the new baseline requires this stimulation.

Also, electromagnetic radiation such as microwave turns into electricity when it hits metal. Shielding against that can only be achieved via a Faraday cage and grounding. This will ground into the brain of the patient which is bad. And what if the electrodes move? (very bad!)

There is a HUGE amount of research driving this sort of invention that has NEVER been seen before.

The research focus for the past few years on Alzheimer's, Parkinsons, Creutzfeldt–Jakob's Disease, ADD/AAHD as well as depression studies, endocrinology and even the fields of artificial intelligence, neural sciences and cybernetics have synergistically started to dovetail together and are providing huge amounts of very precise data on how the brain and nervous system work.

It is the first time we have ever had the technological tools to actually map and experiment real-time with the brains multifaceted processes--electromagnetic, hormonal, etc.--while it is working.

This isn't like the days when we used tap hammers to drive metal rods into people's brains to see if it might help.  We can now watch in real time the molecular, chemical and physical changes happening in the brain as we interact with it.  The understanding of the brain is greater than it has ever been in history and this may be one of those watershed moments where whole new realms of treatment and cure become available.

Depression is one of the biggest issues because it affects everyone in the world and there are so many areas affected by it and causal to it that a lot of information and research is needed.  If you have ever known anyone "chemically lobotomized" as the means of managing their symptoms, you'd understand why any sort of experiment that might give hope is worth it to a lot of people.

They recently just lab demonstrated a machine that allowed to computer wired couples to ask and answer each other's questions without saying a word and in future plan to do trials with comatose and brain dead patients to see if they are capable of "yes-no" conversations.

I have a friend who was just prescribed Abilify and for her it works wonders--she said the "cloud is gone" and she feels perfectly normal...yet the adverse effects for people who don't respond well to the drug are frightening.  We need a lot more alternatives.

One thing's for sure, medical science is advancing into areas long thought way past science fiction. 

Personally, I am taking drugs manufactured on a molecular level. We have video and audio signals that can be sent directly into the brain (hearing impaired, blind, etc). With the increased mapping of the brain, the above is becoming not only possible, but approaches the mundane.

The future is amazing. And a little frightening. And it's nearly here, too.

On another note, this is one area I'd personally move into veeeery carefully. I'd be curious to know what the long term effects of sending impulses directly into the brain this way would be; would it affect emotional or mental development in any way? Would the lack of an internal cause/effect link cause 'confusion' in the development of responses? (This is very much in layman's terms.). 

That would seem to be the behavioral method as well, Karen... using video game simulation loosely, then more and more closely to reproduce the original event and by doing so 'desensitize' (much like allergy shots) the person to the original trauma.

For long range results, we'll just have to wait. Lack of an 'internal link'? I'm afraid I don't understand what you're trying to convey there.

Only 'problem' is that some of the world's most 'creative' minds have been depressed and/or suicidal, etc.  'Kill' the 'disease' and bang goes their creative artistry.

Simple test....see if you can list ALL of the British comedians who WEREN'T cronically depressed and/or suicidal....

Then there's all those musicians that have taken themselves 'out' with illicit and/or prescription drugs.....