From the We-Know-So-Little Department: At the top of the NY Times's most-emailed list for today is an informative article in the Magazine about depression, focusing on recent experiments with deep-brain electrical stimulation to treat it.
"So we turn it [the electrical stimulator] on," Mayberg told me later, "and all of a sudden [the patient] says to me, 'It's very strange,' she says, 'I know you've been with me in the operating room this whole time. I know you care about me. But it's not that. I don't know what you just did. But I'm looking at you, and it's like I just feel suddenly more connected to you.' "
Mayberg, stunned, signaled with her hand to the others, out of Deanna's view, to turn the stimulator off.
"And they turn it off," Mayberg said, "and she goes: 'God, it's just so odd. You just went away again. I guess it wasn't really anything.'
(Emphasis added.) This kind of research is wonderful. The more we can learn about the brain, the better an idea we'll have as to why people behave the way they do. That, in turn, will give us a better shot at doing something useful about it.
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