from the how-long-until-it-is-adopted-by-the-military? dept.
A New Brain Implant Automatically Detects and Kills Pain in Real Time:
Chronic pain is like a horror movie monster that sneaks up on you. It’s unpredictable, lingers silently, and when it strikes it’s often too late to tame. More diabolically, our best weapon against it—pain medication—can increase pain intensity over time. And as the opioid epidemic sadly shows, even pain medication is a double-edged sword.
It’s time for something new. This week, a group from the New York University School of Medicine said “no thank you” to medication altogether. Instead, they engineered a “neural bridge” that connects two brain regions: one critical for detecting pain, the other that dampens pain when activated.
For a brain implant, this one’s particularly special. It’s basically a tag-team of spy and sleeper agent. The “spy” listens to electrical chatter in a brain region that processes pain—along with dozens of other tasks—and decodes it in real time. Once it detects an electrical signal that suggests “pain found,” it sends the information to the “sleeper agent,” a computer chip implanted in the front part of the brain. The chip then automatically triggers a light beam to stimulate the region, activating neurons that can override pain signals.
[...] The beauty of this particular brain-machine interface (BMI) is it only activates when there is pain, instead of zapping the brain all the time. That is, it’s specific and efficient.
For now, the device has only been tested in rats. But it’s a “blueprint” for tuning the brain to ease pain in the future, the authors wrote.
“Our findings show that this implant offers an effective strategy for pain therapy, even in cases where symptoms are traditionally difficult to pinpoint or manage,” said Drs. Jing Wang and Valentino D.B. Mazzia, who led the study.
Journal Reference:
Qiaosheng Zhang, Sile Hu, Robert Talay, et al. A prototype closed-loop brain–machine interface for the study and treatment of pain, Nature Biomedical Engineering (DOI: 10.1038/s41551-021-00736-7)
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @01:26AM
The prison doctors will have a blast with this one
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @01:28AM (3 children)
In Star Trek: DS 9, the kadarshian tailor had this implant that automatically release dopamin in response to pain.
It also came with a small remote control device to override the automated activation which, of course, led to addiction and tolerance - just like the opioid addiction today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @05:39AM
Luckily for us, Deep Space 9 won't be built until 2351, so the patent on this device will still be effective.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @12:30PM (1 child)
Nothing new... You're pointing to non-existent technology on a TV show as an example of preexisting tech? Give me a break.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday July 01 2021, @01:51PM
What are you complaining about? It is entirely up to the US Patent and Trademark Office to decide whether his assertion qualifies as valid prior art on the subject matter.
If I were to bet, I would side with his DS9 prior art holding up, at least in the USA.
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by FuzzyTheBear on Thursday July 01 2021, @01:54AM (1 child)
That's research on rats .. from there to an actual use in humans there's tens of years of research and work to be done.
Nice to see the advancement in rearch .. but as to us humans .. we're a looong way to see this in use.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @01:59AM
It also worked for kardarshians. Sorta - till the override led to addiction and tolerance.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @02:10AM (3 children)
Pain means something is wrong, address what's wrong and (at least in my experience) the pain subsides.
My frequent (but not debilitating) back & neck pain probably started with falling off motorcycles as a teen. It's taken me many years to work out the correct approach to address it--through "bodywork", which of course may not be an option for others. Certainly pain killers are not the answer for me.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 01 2021, @03:23AM
Oh is that all. Next up, we cure all cancer (just fix the immune system) and death itself. Easy Peasy! :-)
As best as we can guess, pain exists because statistically, living things that withdraw from things causing harm and stop doing things that cause damage to themselves live longer and so are more likely to reproduce. Sometimes it all goes horribly wrong.
People in chronic pain do not benefit from refraining from doing the things that cause pain, everything causes pain whether damage is being done or not.
Pain killers can provide a good bit of relief, sometimes at a terrible cost. That relief may not last, but the cost often does.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @12:33PM (1 child)
I can't believe this moronic comment got marked "insightful." You think chronic pains can always be magically fixed? God, people are dumb.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 01 2021, @01:56PM
I can assure you that some chronic pains cannot be magically fixed.
The first thing, IMO, is to learn to live with it. When it gets to the threshold that it distracts me from having any other thoughts other than the pain, it's time to start with a small dose of prescription narcotic pain killers. I'm already on all of the drugs I can possibly be on to address the underlying cause.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday July 01 2021, @02:43AM (4 children)
Promise: a treatment for chronic pain? Nah, it'll never happen, opioid are so much cheaper.
Alternative paying customer: whoever wants soldiers that fight ignoring pain, register your interest for the online auction at {date/time}.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday July 01 2021, @02:04PM (3 children)
I use prescription narcotic pain killers. (hydrocodone) For twelve and a half years now. I haven't gotten in to any trouble with them yet.
They work. They improve my quality of life. I have something called self control.
They are cheap. $5 for a bottle of 30.
If there were a treatment for chronic pain, I would consider it. But I would also consider whether it could be worse than what I do now. I've gone this long without developing a dependency or addiction. Neither my primary dr. nor my arthritis specialist have any concerns with the amount I'm using.
As for soldiers that could fight without pain; not having the pain does not mean that the underlying problem causing the pain won't inhibit you from fighting. If one of your limbs won't support you, lack of pain won't fix that.
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(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Friday July 02 2021, @12:50AM (2 children)
https://www.drfuhrman.com/health-concerns/17/osteoarthritis [drfuhrman.com]
"Many people have reported a Nutritarian [vegetable-rich] diet-style has resulted in resolution of their osteoarthritis symptoms. This is largely due to the anti-inflammatory effects and restoration of blood perfusion and nutrient return to the joint capsule and cartilage."
https://www.drfuhrman.com/health-concerns/11/rheumatoid-arthritis [drfuhrman.com]
"Little is known about what exactly causes RA in individuals, but experts believe it is a combination of genetic, infectious, and other environmental factors, such as diet, toxin exposures, and intestinal bacteria imbalance. ... Hundreds of my patients over the last 25 years, have made dramatic recoveries from autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, connective tissue disease and psoriasis via a Nutritarian diet. Many have achieved complete recoveries and no longer require any medications. A vegan and gluten-free diet has shown to be quite helpful for many with rheumatoid arthritis.1,2 Since there is a relationship between celiac disease and rheumatoid arthritis,3,4 avoiding gluten may be beneficial. ... Talk to your doctor before and after making changes to your diet and supplement regimen if you have a chronic disease or if you are taking any medication, as medication and/or unique dietary modifications may be necessary. Medication reduction should be monitored by a physician. ..."
Good luck whatever path you take!
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday July 02 2021, @03:59PM (1 child)
That is interesting. What I have is more rare and genetic.
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(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Saturday July 03 2021, @02:52PM
Thanks for the reply. Sure, genes have an influence on this, and some few people have rare genetics. Also, gut bacteria can play a big role in inflammation too. That said, genetics may give us weak links, but whether those links get pulled on is usually a function of diet and lifestyle. Doctors are often quick to say some issue is "genetic" (as a defect) because that is then a convenient excuse for both doctor and patient to say nothing can be done about it except to take drugs.
Still, sometimes people do have rare genetic disease and drugs or other specific interventions do make a difference. Example:
"Rapid Genetic Testing May Have Spared This Baby From Death — Whole-genome sequencing delivered diagnosis in record 13 hours; treated with thiamine"
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/93125 [medpagetoday.com]
So, maybe your situation is like that -- even as for 95%-99% of people (guesstimating) significant arthritis results from diet and lifestyle.
What is unfortunate is that there is so much financial conflict of interest in modern medicine (as well as regarding alternatives like nutritional supplements) and so little training of doctors related to nutrition and lifestyle (versus prescribing pharmaceuticals) that it can be hard to know who to trust.
A fantasy I have is to spend just five minutes with the holographic doctor of Star Trek Voyager with their medical tricoder and mostly unbiased and freely dispensed health advice and treatments based on centuries of accumulated medical wisdom collected from millions of medical practitioners -- and, of course, for everyone to have access to that too. Might add twenty to fifty healthy years of lifespan? Maybe someday this back-burnered project of mine will contribute to that (until then there is IBIS): https://github.com/pdfernhout/health-decision-support-tools [github.com]
"Tools to support people collaboratively making health decisions, especially decisions involving uncertainties and conflicts of interests."
See also my other comment here: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=43670&page=1&cid=1152569#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 5, Informative) by NickM on Thursday July 01 2021, @03:00AM (5 children)
N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist (ketamine, pcp and cie) are incredible for chronic pain, yet they are barely used. A legend from blueligth (a forum for drugs users) designed¹ a pair (3-meo-pce and 2-oxo-pce ) of almost perfect drusg for chronic and phantom pain but those drugs are nowhere to be seen in the pharmaceutical pipeline. There are some publications on pubmed about but that's about it....
NMDA antagonist are controversial because of Olney lesions but in a following paper Olney himself showed that those lesions were preventable with the use of either a benzodiazepines, ethanol or anticholinergics .
1-https://www.vice.com/en/article/ppzgk9/interview-with-ketamine-chemist-704-v18n2
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @03:05AM (4 children)
You are not wrong. In the episode of House MD, they jacked him with special-K and his leg pain got, like, annihilated.
For a while.
The lesson of the story?
Smoke Weed Everyday~
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NickM on Thursday July 01 2021, @03:42AM (3 children)
Weed is not that great as a pain killer but it's a still a decent stomac friendly NSAID.... well it's not a traditional NSAID like ibuprofen, naproxen, ketorolac and cie but it's non-steroidal and anti-inflammatory and it's a drug !
I don't watch House MD however I know about Intrathecal ketamine pump, supposedly they are great but they are way to invasive and expensive for general use. While low (10mg) oral doses of 3-meo-pce easily and repeatedly suppress pain without much of a buzz, but as I said it's nowhere to be seen in the pharmaceutical pipeline.
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @04:34AM
Didn't you learn, drugs are bad. Don't do drugs. Wait for experts to rescue you with research (which you are not allowed to do). Only experts doing research and name brand pharmaceuticals provided by a doctor who you must pay.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday July 01 2021, @06:41AM
Now how do you expect to patent that?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 01 2021, @02:13PM
Agree: weed is not a great pain killer. Hydrocodone is like a nuclear weapon for pain, and is way, way cheaper.
As for NSAIDs, I'm already on prescription stuff that is way more potent than OTC NSAIDs. Fortunately after so many years of them, I don't have and never have had any problems with taking them. In the early days, my Dr. worked with me to find just the right one for me, trying a number of different ones. That Dr. has also been very helpful in letting me have a lot of control of my treatment over the years. I recently suggested a different dosing strategy that would involve swapping out one of my drugs for two or three at half the dose, at one particular time of day, spread out, which would require a different prescription for that other bottle of half-dosage drugs. The end result would be that my 24 hour dosage would be slightly higher. Having one doctor over a long time allows there to be a trust that I can do sophisticated dosing without any mistakes. That's important considering how much acetaminophen I take.
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(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 01 2021, @12:27PM (2 children)
PLEASE stopped using the word "dampen" for lessen or reduce. "Dampen" means to make wet. The word you're groping for is "damp."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday July 01 2021, @01:39PM (1 child)
Meriam-webster says otherwise: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dampen [merriam-webster.com]
The second definition is indeed to make damp.
Meanwhile, the verb you're looking for to mean "to make wet" is "wet".
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday July 02 2021, @01:01PM
Well, wet is a lot wetter than damp.
(Score: 1) by jman on Friday July 02 2021, @07:43PM
Sounds like science fiction coming true again. Anyone remember Michael Crichton's "The Terminal Man"?