

Brain Wound Eliminates Man's Mental Illness (1988) - denysonique
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/25/us/brain-wound-eliminates-man-s-mental-illness.html

======
chockablock
As of 2014, deep brain stimulation (DBS, think pacemaker for the brain) is
formally recommended in the US for treatment-resistant OCD.

[http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282899.php](http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282899.php)

In the SF Bay area, Stanford, UCSF and Kaiser all have very active DBS
practices treating a range of conditions.

[https://stanfordhealthcare.org/medical-clinics/deep-brain-
st...](https://stanfordhealthcare.org/medical-clinics/deep-brain-stimulation-
program/conditions.html)

[http://neurosurgery.ucsf.edu/index.php/deep-brain-
stimulatio...](http://neurosurgery.ucsf.edu/index.php/deep-brain-stimulation-
for-OCD.html)

~~~
jsm386
For some perspective NIH has a fairly straightforward overview of the various
Brain Stimulation Therapies being practiced today @
[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/brain-stimulation-
ther...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/brain-stimulation-
therapies/brain-stimulation-therapies.shtml)

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mrleinad
"Brain Wound Eliminates Man's Mental Illness".. doesn't this sum up all
neurosurgery in a single sentence? Or aren't surgical procedures "inflicted
wounds"?

~~~
jtheory
Neurosurgery attempting to treat _mental illness_ is called "pschosurgery". It
tends to be a bit chilling to read about, and not really popular these days.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosurgery](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosurgery)

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sfttemp88
I have literally become a phd in OCD., and this is how I got rid of it, or at
least it's not hindering my life like before., obviously in addition to some
med.

So the point is, read as much as you can, and try to master the OCD like a
physic, my phsic told me, you know more than me. though he had 50 years
experience.

How this help, after all what you read is going in the brain, after excessive
study, your brain would reach a point, where it would be aware, the you have
OCD, this is where, the things start to go from good to better.

If you are unable to deep consciousness that you have OCD, it would overcome
again and again.

In short, it's the mental illness, and only your brain can fix it. You just
need make your brain realize that you have a problem, once the brain deeply
acknowledge it, it will fix it.

Once your brain acknowledges, it would a lot easy to shift your focus away.

Shifting focus away from the OCD thought is the key for elimination.

If you get OCD thought shift your focus, but it's easier said than done, you
can only do it, once your brain has acknowledged you have OCD. and for that
you have to deeply study OCD

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ccleve
The most famous similar case is that of Phineas Gage. The brain injuries he
suffered were of enormous importance to science. The whole story is
fascinating.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage)

~~~
arbuge
Gage went in the other direction, from well balanced to exhibiting many
negative qualities. He survived, but other than that I'm not sure it was very
positive for him personally.

------
aaron695
DOI: 10.1192/bjp.151.6.855

[http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/151/6/855](http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/151/6/855)

Obviously the real story is not as simplistic. Newspapers in 1988 are the same
as today, full of just so stories.

That said, the real story is quite interesting and sad if you have access to
the article.

------
nashashmi
> George had also retained the same I.Q. he had before becoming ill, Dr.
> Solyum said, and he returned to school, got a new job and is now in his
> second year of college. #3% in U.S. May Be Compulsive The story was also
> reported in today's issue of The Los Angeles Times.

I don't think he could have done so well in college if he did not have OCD in
the beginning. The OCD got severe so he opted for suicide.

So what is the real lesson here? Let mental illnesses do their thing until
they get out of hand? And then perform surgery to remove what made them gifted
in the first place so their gifts could reign unfettered?

Or something else? Like incredible powers (mental illnesses) be given
incredibly powerful management techniques for restraint. Isn't that how
management works with highly talented members who are restrained from going
too deep?

~~~
jsprogrammer
>I don't think he could have done so well in college if he did not have OCD in
the beginning.

Why do you say that?

>So what is the real lesson here? Let mental illnesses do their thing until
they get out of hand? And then perform surgery to remove what made them gifted
in the first place so their gifts could reign unfettered?

According to the article he seemed to retain whatever "gifts" he may have
(had).

------
stretchwithme
Isn't that how radial keratotomy, the forerunner of lasik, got started?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_keratotomy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_keratotomy)

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mikepalmer
WTF, I love you too, mom.

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spitfire
I can't help but think of surgical tamping rods.

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ghshephard
Reading through the treatment, it seems somewhat perilous to reproduce in the
manner described. One would hope that a surgical treatment replicating the
effects (if not the exact manner) of this cure could be researched - thought
that to is not without it's challenges...

~~~
meowface
It's no different from a lobotomy.

It has a decent chance of correcting the targeted affliction, but with
destructive side effects often far worse than the original condition. In some
rare cases lobotomies successfully treated mental illness without impacting
functioning in other ways though, just like what happened here.

~~~
ars
In concept no. But it's more targeted so might work better.

------
galago
Is he still alive? How is he doing?!!

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gokulg
miracle ?

------
edgarvm
old news: February 25, 1988

~~~
dang
Old news is welcome on Hacker News.

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paulsutter
So there are 1.5 million brain injuries per year in the US[1], and they found
one with a positive outcome.

Publication bias[2] is the most charitable explanation, but really it shows
that even the New York Times is prone to sensationalism[3]

[1] [https://www.braintrauma.org/tbi-faqs/tbi-
statistics/](https://www.braintrauma.org/tbi-faqs/tbi-statistics/)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensationalism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensationalism)

EDIT: No that does NOT make it interesting. It suggests that it would take
order of 1.5 million more brain injuries to reproduce it. Hardly a medical
advance.

~~~
chockablock
You have deeply missed the point of this case report.

We don't know what causes OCD (and we knew even less when this kid shot
himself in 1983; the paper was not written until 5 years later).

When you get spontaneous remission due to an injury, that is a hint that the
damaged region might be important in the disease process.

Unusual cases like these have the potential to rapidly accelerate our
_understanding_ of disease, which is why medical journals still publish case
reports.

No one is proposing treating OCD with firearms.

~~~
paulsutter
Funny, you and I agree that we don't know what causes OCD, but the article
states flat out that the damaged portion of his brain is responsible for OCD.
That's the only medical-ish claim in the article, it's made with no
references, and you still think this article is useful?

~~~
yawaramin
Yes, because the article states that the damaged portion of _his_ brain was
responsible for _his_ OCD, which was a simple statement of fact, given that
his OCD disappeared once the damage occurred.

But from this one case we can still extrapolate a very useful line of inquiry.
It's almost like when you infer a single number in a Sudoku puzzle and the
rest of the numbers become obvious after that, like a domino effect.

