Zapping the brain with waves of ultrasound might be key to beating addiction.
That’s according to new research of a $1 million helmet-like device that beams these high frequency waves at a key part of the brain that’s responsible for reward, motivation and addiction.
This region, called the nucleus accumbens, sits in the middle of the brain and when the ultrasound waves reach the area, it causes the cell membranes to vibrate and disrupts the reward system people experience which leads 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 an addict for more than 20 years.
John Hilton’s brain was zapped for about 30 minutes while he observed images of heroin being cooked on a spoon and injected into an arm.
Once the process was done, Hilton said the need to use ‘just wasn’t there.’
The new method is an FDA-approved medical procedure that involves inserting tiny electrodes into two small holes drilled in the skull and inserting them into the reward area of the brain.
The researchers hope that by removing the reward system that causes those cravings for alcohol or opioids, people will be able to more easily manage the everyday triggers or stressors that can lead to addiction.
A new 30-person clinical trial is using 1,000 probing ultrasound waves to change the way the brain responds to substance abuse like alcoholism and opioid abuse.
‘There’s a lot of traffic going on between the addiction center of the brain and the rest of the brain. Over time, that traffic is gone,’ Dr Ali Rezai, a neurosurgeon and executive chair at RNI told the Wall Street Journal.
‘The addiction center isn’t in charge anymore.’
Drug overdoses are responsible for more than 100,000 deaths every year, but researchers are now testing whether ultrasound waves can re-train the brain cells that cause addiction.
An estimated 2.7 million people ages 12 and older have an opioid addiction in the US, while roughly 28.9 million Americans suffer from alcohol abuse, according to the National Institute of Health (NIH).
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 shift the way a person’s brain reacts.
Researchers first tested the DBS on a patient in 2021 and since then have carried out the trial on two other patients.
James Mahoney, Ph.D., who works at RNI, said: ‘We were all impressed with the patient’s bravery to help explore new treatment options for substance use disorder.
‘While the current treatment options for substance use disorder work for many, they don’t work for everyone for a variety of reasons.’
The researchers at RNI found that when the pulsing wavelengths were inserted into the area of the brain that causes a reward system, they were able to stop the participant from having a craving related to images of the drug
However, Hilton was part of a blinded, randomized clinical trial meaning the participants didn’t know which treatment or intervention they had received.
It followed an earlier successful trial of 20 patients who were aware that they were receiving the wavelength treatment.
In that trial, patients who had reported using drugs for the majority of their lives found that their cravings dropped to almost zero and nearly 75 percent were still clean several months later.
The researchers at RNI have received $5 million in funding from the NIH and plan to conduct additional trials in the coming months alongside Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of Maryland.
Although the researchers are optimistic about their findings, they have warned that the treatment will still need to be paired with other coping mechanisms down the line.
James Mahoney, a clinical neuropsychologist at RNI told the WSJ: ‘If you take away the craving, but you don’t remove the stressors and you don’t replace the craving with more adaptive coping mechanisms, eventually you’re going to revert back.’
