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Brain implants revive cognitive abilities long after traumatic brain injury
re:concussion
I like applied science, that is, science that works in a product or device to benefit people. Vs ideological “science” promoting harms, or worthless things like string theory in physics.
As a concussion survivor myself, I take an interest in this personally. The medical advice I was given at Stanford was poor to the point of malpractice/incompetence and outright dangerous (!!!), which makes me wonder if Gina Arata might have had better luck had she avoided Stanford to start with. How ironic.
Brain implants revive cognitive abilities long after traumatic brain injury
2023-12-04. Emphasis added.
...Arata was accepted as a participant. In 2018, physicians surgically implanted a device deep inside her brain, then carefully calibrated the device’s electrical activity to stimulate the networks the injury had subdued.
She noticed the difference immediately: When she was asked to list items in the produce aisle of a grocery store, she could rattle off fruits and vegetables. Then a researcher turned the device off, and she couldn’t name any.
“Since the implant I haven’t had any speeding tickets,” Arata said. “I don’t trip anymore. I can remember how much money is in my bank account. I wasn’t able to read, but after the implant I bought a book, Where the Crawdads Sing, and loved it and remembered it. And I don’t have that quick temper.”
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WIND: while it’s pleasing PR and may have some downside I do not see offhand, things like this that demonstrably help people are where funding ought to flow. However, a brain implant vs a permanent organic improvement seems 2nd best.
Every concussion is different, since it can damage the brain in highly personal ways. Still, the description of her issues is extremely familiar to me. And IMO, medical science was and is clueless about the recovery process:
“In general, there’s very little in the way of treatment for these patients,” said Jaimie Henderson, MD, professor of neurosurgery and co-senior author of the study.
I beg to differ: nutrition and exercise, ever an intellectual black hole in the medical field, surely made a huge difference to me. These brilliant doctors see only solutions based on pills or devices that can be monetized. And I utterly reject the opinion of any doctor who has not personally suffered a brain injury as abject ignorance, like a blind person feeling-out an elephant—no lived experience and hence no insight or perspective.
