Zapping the brain with ultrasound might be key to curing addiction

Zapping the brain with ultrasound waves could be the key to overcoming addiction.

That’s according to new research into a $1 million helmet-like device that beams these high-frequency waves to a key part of the brain responsible for reward, motivation and addiction.

This area, called the nucleus accumbens, is located in the center of the brain and when the ultrasound waves reach the area, it causes the cell membranes to vibrate and disrupts the reward system that people experience, leading to addiction.

Doctors at West Virginia University’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI) recently tested the strategy on a 39-year-old man who has been addicted for more than two decades.

John Hilton’s brain was zapped for about 30 minutes as he watched images of heroin being boiled on a spoon and injected into an arm.

Once the process was complete, Hilton said the need to use “just wasn’t there.”

The new method is an FDA-approved medical procedure that involves placing small electrodes in two small holes in the skull and placing them in the reward area of ​​the brain.

The researchers hope that by removing the reward system that causes cravings for alcohol or opioids, people can more easily manage the everyday triggers or stressors that can lead to addiction.

‘There is a lot of traffic between the addiction center of the brain and the rest of the brain. Over time, that traffic disappeared,” Dr. Ali Rezai, a neurosurgeon and executive chairman at RNI, told the Wall Street Journal.

“The addiction center is no longer in charge.”

Drug overdoses are responsible for more than 100,000 deaths each year, but researchers are now testing whether ultrasound waves can retrain the brain cells that cause addiction.

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), an estimated 2.7 million people aged 12 and older in the US suffer from opioid addiction, while approximately 28.9 million Americans suffer from alcohol abuse.

Current treatment methods require the addict to take medications that block the euphoric feeling they get from opioids or alcohol.

But the new method targets the physical part of the brain to change the way a person’s brain responds.

Researchers first tested the DBS on a patient in 2021 and have since conducted the trial on two other patients.

James Mahoney, Ph.D., of RNI, said, “We were all impressed by the patient’s courage to help explore new treatment options for substance abuse.

“While current substance abuse treatment options work for many, they do not work for everyone for a variety of reasons.”

The RNI researchers found that when the pulsating wavelengths were introduced into the area of ​​the brain that triggers a reward system, they were able to prevent the participant from developing a craving for images of the drug.

However, Hilton was part of a blinded, randomized clinical trial, meaning participants did not know which treatment or intervention they had received.

It followed an earlier successful trial involving 20 patients who knew they were receiving the wavelength treatment.

In that study, patients who had been using drugs for most of their lives found that their cravings dropped to almost zero and that almost 75 percent were still clean several months later.

RNI researchers have received $5 million in funding from the NIH and plan to conduct additional studies in the coming months, along with Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of Maryland.

Although the researchers are optimistic about their findings, they have cautioned that the treatment will still need to be combined with other coping mechanisms in the future.

James Mahoney, a clinical neuropsychologist at RNI, shared WJ: ‘If you take away the craving, but you don’t take away the stressors and you don’t replace the craving with more adaptive coping mechanisms, then you will eventually return.’