Page 32 - aruba-today-20190509

A32 FEATURE
Thursday 9 May 2019
Chinese researchers try brain implants to treat addiction

By ERIKA KINETZ were something where we
SHANGHAI (AP) — The could flip a switch, but it's
sound of doctors boring probably fanciful at this
through his skull to feed stage," said Adrian Carter,
electrodes deep into his who heads the neurosci-
brain made Yan tremble. ence and society group at
"The drill was like bzzzzzzz," Monash University in Mel-
he later recalled. "The mo- bourne. "There's a lot of risks
ment of drilling is the most that go with promoting that
terrible." idea."
Yan has been using meth- Meanwhile, the body count
amphetamine since 2011. from addiction is rising.
The hope is that technolo- More than 500,000 Ameri-
gy will extinguish his addic- cans died of drug overdos-
tion — quite literally, with es in the decade ending in
the flip of a switch. 2017, adding urgency to
The treatment — deep the search for new, more
brain stimulation — has long effective treatments.
been used for movement But research for DBS as an
disorders like Parkinson's. addiction treatment fund-
Now, the first clinical trial of ed by the U.S. National Insti-
DBS for methamphetamine tutes of Health has focused
addiction is being con- This Monday, Oct. 29, 2018, photo shows a brain scan of a methamphetamine user with the path on animals, not people.
of electrodes that doctors at Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, China implanted to stimulate an area of
ducted at Shanghai's Ruijin the brain associated with addiction. And at least two U.S. labo-
Hospital, along with trials for Associated Press ratories dropped clinical tri-
opioid addiction. Yan is the als of DBS for treating alco-
study's first patient; for fear its and leaving behind a Instead of irreversibly killing experiments for drug ad- holism over concerns about
of losing his job, he asked trail of patients with mood brain cells, the devices al- diction should not be al- study design and prelimi-
that only his surname be disorders, lost memories low interventions that are — lowed. nary results that didn't seem
published. and altered sex drives. in theory — reversible. The Critics argue that they are to justify the risks, investiga-
Western attempts to push In 2004, China's Ministry of technology has opened a premature, and will not tors who led the studies told
forward with human trials Health ordered a halt to fresh field of human experi- address the complex bio- The Associated Press.
of deep brain stimulation the practice at most hos- mentation globally. logical, social and psycho- "The lack of scientific clar-
for drug addiction have pitals. Nine years later, a "For many other psychiatric logical factors that drive ity, the important but strict
foundered, even as China military hospital in Xi'an re- disorders, for example, an- addiction. Scientists don't regulatory regime, along
has emerged as a hub for ported that roughly half orexia schizophrenia, OCD, fully understand how DBS with the high cost and risk
this kind of research. of 1,167 patients who had there's no way to use the works and there is still de- of surgery make clinical tri-
But the vast suffering their brains lesioned stayed animal to be like a model," bate about where elec- als of DBS for addiction in
wrought by the U.S. opioid off drugs for at least five said Dr. Sun Bomin, direc- trodes should be placed the U.S. difficult at the pres-
epidemic may be chang- years. tor of the functional neu- to treat addiction. There ent time," said Dr. Emad
ing the risk-reward calculus DBS builds on that history. rosurgery center at Ruijin is also skepticism in the Eskandar, chairman of neu-
for doctors and regulators. The surgery involves im- Hospital. "For these kinds global scientific community rological surgery at Albert
Now, the experimental sur- planting a device that acts of special psychiatric disor- about the general quality Einstein College of Medi-
gery Yan underwent is com- as a kind of pacemaker ders we have to use human and ethical rigor of clinical cine in New York.
ing to America. In February, for the brain, electrically patients." trials done in China. China's studies have of-
the U.S. Food and Drug Ad- stimulating targeted areas. Some believe such human "It would be fantastic if there fered mixed results. Sun
ministration greenlighted a and his colleagues have
clinical trial in West Virginia published one case study,
of DBS for opioid addiction. describing a patient who
Until now, complex ethical, used heroin and fatally
social and scientific ques- overdosed after getting
tions made it hard to push DBS. But a separate pilot
forward with such experi- study published in Janu-
ments in the United States, ary by doctors at a military
where the devices can hospital in Xi'an showed
cost $100,000 to implant. that five of eight heroin us-
Scientists in Europe have ers stayed off drugs for two
struggled to recruit patients years after DBS surgery.
for their DBS addiction stud- Based on those results, the
ies. Chinese deep brain stimu-
Globally, there are eight lation device manufacturer
registered DBS clinical trials SceneRay Corp. is seeking
for drug addiction, accord- Chinese regulatory approv-
ing to a U.S. National Insti- al of its DBS device for opi-
tutes of Health database. oid addiction, and funding
Six are in China. a clinical trial targeting 60
China has a long, troubled participants. SceneRay
history of using brain surgery chairman Ning Yihua said
to treat addiction. Doctors his application for a clinical
destroyed small clumps of A stereotactic device presses into the head of a brain surgery patient at Ruijin Hospital's functional trial in the U.S. was blocked
tissue in the brains of heroin neurosurgery center in Shanghai, China on Monday, Oct. 29, 2018. by the U.S. Food and Drug
users, garnering huge prof- Associated Press Administration.q