Current:Home > ScamsA little electric stimulation in just the right spot may bolster a damaged brain -GrowthSphere Strategies
A little electric stimulation in just the right spot may bolster a damaged brain
View
Date:2025-04-15 11:26:33
When Gina Arata was 22, she crashed her car on the way to a wedding shower.
Arata spent 14 days in a coma. Then she spent more than 15 years struggling with an inability to maintain focus and remember things.
"I couldn't get a job because if I was, let's say, a waitress, I couldn't remember to get you a Diet Pepsi," she says.
That changed in 2018, when Arata received an experimental device that delivered electrical stimulation to an area deep in her brain.
When the stimulation was turned on, Arata could list lots of items found in, say, the produce aisle of a grocery store. When it was off, she had trouble naming any.
Tests administered to Arata and four other patients who got the implanted device found that, on average, they were able to complete a cognitive task more than 30 percent faster with stimulation than without, a team reports in the journal Nature Medicine.
"Everybody got better, and some people got dramatically better," says Dr. Jaimie Henderson, an author of the study and neurosurgeon at Stanford University.
The results "show promise and the underlying science is very strong," says Deborah Little, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UT Health in Houston.
But Little, who was not connected with the research, adds, "I don't think we can really come to any conclusions with [a study of] five people."
From consciousness to cognition
The study emerged from decades of research led by Dr. Nicholas Schiff, an author of the paper and a professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.
Schiff has spent his career studying the brain circuits involved in consciousness.
In 2007, he was part of a team that used deep brain stimulation to help a patient in a minimally conscious state become more aware and responsive. Nearly a decade later, he teamed up with Henderson to test a similar approach on people like Gina Arata.
Henderson was charged with surgically implanting tiny electrodes deep in each patient's brain.
"There is this very small, very difficult-to-target region right in the middle of a relay station in the brain called the thalamus," Henderson says.
That region, called the central lateral nucleus, acts as a communications hub in the brain and plays an important role in determining our level of consciousness.
The team hoped that stimulating this hub would help patients like Arata by improving connections with the brain's executive center, which is involved in planning, focus, and memory.
So starting in 2018, Henderson operated on five patients, including Arata. All had sustained brain injuries at least two years before receiving the implant.
"Once we put the wires in, we then hook the wires up to a pacemaker-like device that's implanted in the chest," Henderson says. "And then that device can be programmed externally."
The improved performance with the device suggests that it is possible to "make a difference years out from injury," says Little, who is research director at the Trauma and Resilience Center at UT Health.
If deep brain stimulation proves effective in a large study, she says, it might help a large number of brain injury patients who have run out of rehabilitation options.
"We don't have a lot of tools to offer them," Little says, adding that "even a 10 percent change in function can make the difference between being able to return to your job or not."
Arata, who is 45 now, hasn't landed a job yet. Two years ago, while studying to become a dental assistant, she was sidelined by a rare condition that caused inflammation in her spinal cord.
But Arata says the implanted stimulator she's had for five years allows her to do many things that had been impossible, like reading an entire book.
"It's on right now," she says during a chat on Zoom. "It's awesome."
veryGood! (38)
Related
- Megan Fox's ex Brian Austin Green tells Machine Gun Kelly to 'grow up'
- Jimmy Carter at 100: A century of changes for a president, the US and the world since 1924
- One person died, others brought to hospitals after bus crashed on interstate in Phoenix
- Ohio’s fall redistricting issue sparked a fight over one word. So what is ‘gerrymandering,’ anyway?
- The White House is cracking down on overdraft fees
- Justice Department sues Alabama saying state is purging voter rolls too close to election
- Here's how Lionel Messi, Inter Miami can win second title together as early as Wednesday
- Arkansas couple stunned when their black Nikes show up as Kendrick Lamar cover art
- Stamford Road collision sends motorcyclist flying; driver arrested
- Kentucky sues Express Scripts, alleging it had a role in the deadly opioid addiction crisis
Ranking
- California DMV apologizes for license plate that some say mocks Oct. 7 attack on Israel
- Maggie Smith Dead at 89: Downton Abbey Costars and More Pay Tribute
- Machine Gun Kelly talks 1 year of sobriety: 'I can forgive myself'
- 'Dangerous rescue' saves dozens stranded on hospital roof amid Helene deluge
- Tarte Shape Tape Concealer Sells Once Every 4 Seconds: Get 50% Off Before It's Gone
- Horoscopes Today, September 27, 2024
- Indianapolis man sentenced to 189 years for killing 3 young men found along a path
- AP PHOTOS: Hurricane Helene inundates the southeastern US
Recommendation
Trump's 'stop
Recent major hurricanes have left hundreds dead and caused billions in damages
App State cancels football game against Liberty in North Carolina after Helene causes flooding
Zendaya’s New Wax Figure Truly Rewrites the Stars
Sonya Massey's father decries possible release of former deputy charged with her death
Love is Blind's Marshall Glaze and Fiancée Chay Barnes Break Up Less Than One Year After Engagement
Plaintiffs won’t revive federal lawsuit over Tennessee’s redistricting maps
Selling Sunset's Bre Tiesi Reveals Where She and Chelsea Lazkani Stand After Feud