Deep Brain Stimulation and Applications

Motivation

The creation and application of less invasive and more affective tools and psychosurgical procedures for curing cognitive disease is the main reason why there exist procedures such as Deep Brain stimulation. Highly invasive procedures such as prefrontal leucotomy once preformed to treat conditions like schizophrenia and other anxiety disorders have been entirely replaced by use of antipsychotic drugs. The development of such drugs has rendered the procedures such as lobotomies and other psychosurgeries obsolete. The amounts of risks involved with these surgeries are tremendous and a slight surgical mistake can result in loss of vision, speech or even paralysis. Even though a lot has been achieved in terms of treatment of neurological disorders using psychiatric medications, there are several neurodegenerative disorders such as Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease that need more attention than just a mere drug based treatment. This leads to the development of less invasive treatment methods such as gamma knife irradiation and deep brain stimulation.