Stick Some Electrodes into Your Brain and Feel Better
From CNN. Trepanning, a battery. It's interesting how Area 25, the part of the brain that seems to work with mood, is overactive when you are depressed. Too much work going on.
This is exactly the procedure my dad had for Parkinson's. It gave him some relief, and obviously seems to have worked for the woman in the article, but there's a slightly sinister, opaque relationship between Medtronic, the company that produces the equipment, and the institutions offering the surgery. Aside from the cost, hundreds of thousands of dollars, there's a creepy eagerness for patients - patients are research subjects, and the hospitals (my father went to UCSF) compete with one another for firsts in how the procedure is completed. Innovation that benefits the patient is tied up with competition and capital gain, which might be an obvious point, but it's not one that's ever made in the glossy texts that Medtronic packages with its equipment; those are pamphlets with smiling elderly people swinging grandchildren around and playing golf, depictions of idyllic relationships and such that are quite similar to the way CNN pictures the woman.
This is exactly the procedure my dad had for Parkinson's. It gave him some relief, and obviously seems to have worked for the woman in the article, but there's a slightly sinister, opaque relationship between Medtronic, the company that produces the equipment, and the institutions offering the surgery. Aside from the cost, hundreds of thousands of dollars, there's a creepy eagerness for patients - patients are research subjects, and the hospitals (my father went to UCSF) compete with one another for firsts in how the procedure is completed. Innovation that benefits the patient is tied up with competition and capital gain, which might be an obvious point, but it's not one that's ever made in the glossy texts that Medtronic packages with its equipment; those are pamphlets with smiling elderly people swinging grandchildren around and playing golf, depictions of idyllic relationships and such that are quite similar to the way CNN pictures the woman.
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