Pacemakers For The Brain

What does a pacemaker do? It sends jolts of electrical pulse to the heart, regulating it whenever the heartbeat begins to become out of the ordinary. This has been found to be a good, effective means of keeping most hearts from going haywire, and has saved a few lives. Now, people may soon end up picturing the possibility of the mental equivalent of a pacemaker.

It is known that the brain operates largely on electrical impulses, with information being sent from one part of the body or from an area of the brain to another. These impulses carry all manner of information, from commands to areas of the body to pain signals to mood regulation. Some scientists have theorized that there is the possibility of using devices similar to pacemakers to have an effect on these electrical pulses. Mood disorders such as depression are typically treated using pharmaceutical components, with treatment largely ignoring the possibility of the brain's electrical circuitry. There are those, however, who would suggest using pacemaker technology to treat depression and other mood disorders that affect how the brain regulates moods.

The technology may seem rather questionable. After all, medical science still doesn't fully understand how these electrical impulses work in the brain, and how a pacemaker-like device might affect things other than the intended targets. Still, the possibility of using electrical impulses to help regulate problems with depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other mental conditions is promising.

Depression, in theory, is a problem that is caused by biological factors in the brain. So it should be reasonable to believe that affecting those factors will result in an alleviation of the condition's effects. However, even if the concept of regulating abnormal signals in the human brain is sound, there is very little evidence to show that electrical impulses are connected to the disorder, and that “shocking” the brain in such a manner can really work without affecting anything else.