Doctors at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, US, say they have successfully treated a patient’s epilepsy and OCD using a brain implant.
Amber Pearson, 33, used to wash her hands repeatedly until they began bleeding due to her mental illness, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Pearson’s doctors used a 32-millimeter device that sends brain stimulation to interfere with brain activity that causes seizures.
Doctors at Oregon University believe they have isolated the brain activity causing her OCD and, for the first time, have managed to implant a device that treats both conditions.
Neurosurgeon Ahmed Raslan said the program to treat epilepsy was different from the program to treat OCD and the device manages to do both.
Pearson said her compulsion to carry out hour-long checklists and rituals associated with OCD has diminished greatly and she now spends just half an hour each day on such obsessive activities.
She has also overcome her fear of contamination from eating and is able to engage in social activities that her illness prevented her from taking part in before.
Raslan said a study is now in the works at the University of Pennsylvania to see if the technique can be more widely used to treat people with OCD.
