Submitted by la334 on Tue, 18/03/2025 - 10:59
Surgeons are to put implants into the brains of alcoholics and opioid addicts in a trial aimed at testing the use of electrical impulses to combat drink and drug cravings.
The technique is already used to help patients control some of the effects of Parkinson’s disease, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Now, a group of doctors and researchers – from Cambridge and Oxford universities and King’s College London – are preparing to use deep brain stimulation to try to decrease addicts’ yearnings and boost their self-control.
“Deep brain stimulation acts like a pacemaker,” the project’s chief investigator Professor Valerie Voon, of Cambridge University’s psychiatry department, told the Observer.
Read the article in The Guardian article here>>
More coverage:
Cambridge and London hospitals to pioneer brain implants to combat alcohol and opioid addiction
People suffering from severe alcohol and opioid addiction are to be offered a revolutionary new technique involving planting electrodes in the brain to modulate brain activity and cravings and improve self-control.
We’ve seen how effective deep brain stimulation can be for neurological disorders from Parkinson’s to OCD to depression. We want to see if it can also transform the lives of people with intractable alcohol and opioid addiction
Valerie Voon
The technique – deep brain stimulation – will be trialled at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, and King’s College Hospital, London. The team behind the Brain-PACER: Brain Pacemaker Addiction Control to End Relapse study is currently recruiting individuals with severe alcohol or opioid addiction who are interested in taking part.
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a neurosurgical procedure that delivers ongoing stimulation to the brain. DBS acts as a brain pacemaker to normalise abnormal brain activity. It is well-tolerated, effective and widely used for neurological disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders.