Thought I would throw a little medical tech at ya'll. This is the guy who founded my department in the 1940s. Quite a quack, but his research with deep brain stimulators opened the door for some amazing things we're doing now.
Johns Hopkins has some cool videos showing the differences with the stimulators off and on. Also an animated video showing the procedure.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Wave of the future
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3 comments:
Those videos are impressive, to say the least.
Help me:
"The primary symptom of schizophrenia isn't hallucinations or delusions," he tells us. "It's a defect in the pleasure response. Schizophrenics have a predominance of painful emotions. They function in an almost continuous state of fear or rage, fight or flight, because they don't have the pleasure to neutralize it." ...
Does this reflect the reigning clinical definition of schizophrenia?
Is one of the reasons that Heath is considered a quack is due to the view that, though they were stimulating the "rage/fear circuits", they weren't harming the subject? Cause it seems a very short road from that to torture of a psychological sort. The old gom jabbar test comes to mind...
Also: state-funded hookas? Nice.
Excellent article, Rex. One thing struck me in particular:
"His electrodes charted the circuitry of pain in some of the illest brains in Louisiana."
The illest brains in Louisiana? Was the good doctor really qualified to deal with the illest brains? I mean, I respect the good doctor's work, but I think we all know about a certain trio of experts that happen to be licensed and well versed in communication in this area. We need to go back to formula: someone get the B Boys outta the Boroughs and down to the Big Easy. Because, in case ya don't remember, these gentlemen will, in fact, freak a funky beat like the shit was in a blender.
Fo' reez state funded hookas!
That's Nawlins for ya. Anything for the healing.
So Jon, Heath practiced in a time when little was really known about biologic circuits. Keep in mind that thorazine wasn't even discovered as an antipsychotic until the early 50s - prior to that insulin comas and forced electroconvulsive therapy was still really the only methods of treatment for these folks.
His research was also mostly in a time before institutional review boards that require the idea of informed consent - prior to that they basically did torture people in the name of science and not that far from the Nazi experience.
The primary defect in schizophrenia is dopamine - which plays a role in the pleasure system. However, there are MANY dopamine systems in the brain - his focus on the dopamine system was ahead of his time but the reasoning is now considered antiquated in psychobabble. As I'm sure our current understanding will be in 40yrs.
Definitely not qualified for the illest, defest, most chillinest brains in Sportman's Paradise (formerly the Pelican State).
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