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Background

Brain pacemakers started in 1986 in France and they were successful in implanting it into humans. By 1997, the use of pacemakers for treating tremor was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (Hall, 2001).

Brain Pacemaker

Features

Brain pacemakers help patients with neurological conditions in a safe and effective way. It can help patients with Parkinson’s symptoms, epilepsy, obsessive-compulsive disorder and even depression. Moreover, patients with severe brain damage can be awaken by using deep brain electrical stimulation (Scahill, 2013).

How it works

Similar to heart pacemakers, which are surgically implanted in the chest and use electrical stimulation to maintain optimal cardiac rhythm, brain pacemakers consist of an electrode permanently implanted in the brain to maintain neural equilibrium. The electrode emits electric pulses from a power pack in the chest (Strange, 2012).

 

Reproduced from Gardner (2012)

Reproduced from Sinpetru (2012)

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