Deep Brain Stimulation: A New Treatment Shows Promise in the Most Difficult Cases

There are disorders that defy treatment with prescribed pharmaceuticals: a man’s hands shake so hard that he cannot hold anything; a woman is mired in severe inescapable depression. For these patients and others, an alternative is emerging: deep brain stimulation. In this fascinating and timely investigation, well-known science writer Jamie Talan explains a cutting-edge medical development that is surprising and impressing researchers around the world.

More than 40,000 people worldwide have undergone deep brain stimulation, which involves implanting electrodes in the brain that are connected to a device similar to a pacemaker. With compelling profiles of patients and an introduction to doctors and scientists who are pioneering the research, Talan describes the ways in which deep brain stimulation has produced promising results in the treatment of diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and dystonia—as well as the ethical issues that have arisen in the course of this research.

Science writer Jamie Talan shared the 1998 Edgar Award with Richard Firstman for best nonfiction for The Death of Innocents, a story of forensic science that was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Talan covered neuroscience for Newsday for more than twenty years and is currently science writer-in-residence at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York.