Psychiatry Via a Laser Beam To the Brain

By Corey Binns Posted 07.09.2009 at 2:18 pm 6 Comments

Plugged In: John B. Carnett

This is not your typical light show. The neon light piping into the brain of a mouse with Parkinson's disease stops the animal's tremors instantly. Neuroscientist and psychiatrist Karl Deisseroth and his colleagues at Stanford University believe the laser light can "turn on" damaged or inactive brain cells.

What: A laser device that can treat neurological and mental disorders, including Parkinson's and depression
Where: Palo Alto, Calif.
Why: The World Health Organization predicts that depression will be the second biggest killer after heart disease by 2020.
Wow: Stops tremors in rodents with the flick of a switch.

To demonstrate the technology, the scientists genetically engineered Parkinson's-afflicted mice with light-sensitive cells and inserted an optical fiber inside their brains. When blue laser light struck cells connected to the motor cortex, a brain region responsible for movement, the mice stopped shaking. This discovery points to laser-precision therapies for neurological and mental disorders, like depression and autism, that could one day treat faulty cells while sparing the rest of the brain.

See more machines that heal here, including a Japanese robotic nurse and a holodeck for the human body.

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6 Comments

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avance

07/09/09 at 2:46 pm

wow that is scary looking

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Bigdiscovery84

from Tallahassee, FL

07/09/09 at 2:58 pm

Welcome to the future "Marty" I hope it works

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whitesites

07/09/09 at 11:49 pm

Thats pretty cool, but I hope when I get old and have mental problems I won't be doomed to having LED lights sticking out of my head.

http://prosportnutrition.net/?a=633808700294218750

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FreddyH

07/16/09 at 3:26 am

Science has not been stopping figuring out how to cure disease that is killing people helplessly. But there are things that man has not enough control on things like these kind of diseases. But for those who want alternatives, there are still ways to prevent or cure things out. People who don't want to have to get a prescription for everything could look into the People's Pharmacy. The People's Pharmacy isn't a communist pharmacy, but it's an organization, website, and series of publications that's chock full of home remedies that have been proven in the field, like using Listerine to repel mosquitoes. The People's Pharmacy was started by Joe Graedon, a pharmacologist, and his wife Terry, a medical anthropologist, because they wanted to find some better ways of doing things and living healthier, without needing to rely on some stooge for Big Pharma. Viewing the website is free, but the books published by the People's Pharmacy might be worth some online cash loans.

check out:
http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/07/15/people/

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ecobase

07/17/09 at 2:29 pm

"Why: The World Health Organization predicts that depression will be the second biggest killer after heart disease by 2020.
"

This is scary! Maybe if we stop eating so much processed and frozen food our chemical balance will improve and our bodies and mind will actually listen to us...

Mira - http://www.teethwhiteningfaq.org/

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missbobbi

08/04/09 at 9:37 am

This is an interesting study and I believe that this is the direction modern psychology and psychiatry is heading. What upsets me, however, is there is no mention that the researches randomly assigned the mice to different treatments. Without a study being a "true" experiment, there is no way the researchers can claim a cause-and-effect outcome. I would like to see further research done to replicate these findings.