Deep-brain stimulation: nudging neurons
DBS is most commonly used for movement disorders, especially in people with Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and dystonia, whose symptoms no longer respond well to medication. It has also been approved for some psychiatric conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder, and is being studied for severe depression and epilepsy.
Technically, DBS works by modifying how groups of neurons talk to each other. Many of these disorders involve faulty electrical signals in the brain. Delivering electrical pulses through DBS can interrupt these erratic signals, helping reduce symptoms such as tremors or muscle stiffness. The amount and pattern of stimulation can be precisely adjusted by doctors or, to some extent, by patients themselves using external programmers.
One advantage of DBS is that, unlike brain surgery that destroys tissue, its effects are reversible: if you turn off the device, the stimulation stops. While the exact ways DBS works are still not fully understood, it is believed to help normalise disrupted brain circuits at both the cellular and network levels. More than 1.6 lakh people worldwide have received DBS.
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