‘Brain pacemakers’: implants to be tested to help alcohol and opioid addicts

Trial will determine whether electrical pulses can control and decrease yearnings

Surgeons are to put implants into the brains of alcoholics and opioid addicts in a trial aimed at testing the use of electrical impulses to combat drink and drug cravings.

The technique is already used to help patients control some of the effects of Parkinson’s disease, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Now a group of doctors and researchers – from Cambridge and Oxford universities and King’s College London – are preparing to use deep brain stimulation to try to decrease addicts’ yearnings and to boost their self-control.

Topics

Aging Women’s Brain Mysteries Are Tested in Trio of Studies

Researchers identified a gene that seems to help slow brain aging in women, and studied links between hormone therapy, menopause and Alzheimer’s.
The New York Times - 3d
Mallinckrodt and Endo to combine after emerging from bankruptcy linked to opioid crisis

Groups have resolved billions of dollars in claims for selling highly addictive painkillers
Financial Times - 2d
Davina McCall will be 'friends for life' with brain surgeon

The TV presenter underwent complex brain surgery in November to remove a benign brain cyst.
BBC News - Mar. 8
Elon Musk’s Neuralink Files to Trademark ‘Telepathy’

The brain implant company cofounded by Elon Musk is moving to trademark several product names, including Telepathy and Telekinesis.
Wired - Mar. 7
Plastic pollution leaves seabirds with brain damage similar to Alzheimer’s, study shows

Blood tests on migratory chicks fed plastics by their parents show neurodegeneration, as well as cell rupture and stomach lining decay. Ingesting plastic is leaving seabird chicks with brain damage ...
The Guardian - 3d
Why Brussels’ €150bn defence pot is a test case for the EU’s arms strategy

Also in this newsletter: A dangerous drug addiction, and Russia’s reliance on Chinese cars
Financial Times - 5d
N.J. judge allows use of powerful DNA tool in quadruple murder trial

A New Jersey judge ruled that prosecutors can use evidence from a powerful and increasingly common DNA tool in the upcoming trial of a man charged in the 2018 murder of four relatives.
NBC News - 3d
Trial Set for Men Accused of Targeting Iranian Dissident in New York

Prosecutors say the men helped direct a murder-for-hire scheme aimed at Masih Alinejad. The trial is expected to show Iran’s efforts to punish those who criticize it, no matter where they are.
The New York Times - 5d
Annual jab for HIV protection passes trial hurdle

Lenacapavir, which stops HIV from replicating inside cells, has passed early safety tests.
BBC News - 4d

More from The Guardian

Ukraine ceasefire plans moving to operational phase, Starmer says

UK prime minister accuses Putin of trying to delay peace and calls for ‘guns to fall silent’. Keir Starmer has called for the “guns to fall silent in Ukraine” and said military powers will meet ...
The Guardian - 4h
Serbians stage huge protest in Belgrade against their president

Farmers and bikers join students in climax to movement that Aleksandar Vučić labels an ‘imported revolution’. A vast demonstration has been gathering in Belgrade, marking the climax of more than ...
The Guardian - 54m
Trump administration mulling new travel restrictions on citizens from dozens of countries

New memo lists 41 countries – including Afghanistan, Cuba and Syria – that could face new restrictions, evoking first-term Muslim ban. The Trump administration is considering issuing travel ...
The Guardian - 4h
Israeli airstrikes ‘kill nine’ as Hamas restates Gaza ceasefire demands

Militant group hardening its negotiating position in ceasefire talks amid new violence in territory. The current fragile pause in hostilities in Gaza has come under further threat with Hamas ...
The Guardian - 1h
‘Spreadsheets of empire’: red tape goes back 4,000 years, say scientists after Iraq finds

Ancient Mesopotamian stone tablets show extraordinary detail and reach of government in cradle of world civilisations. The red tape of government bureaucracy spans more than 4,000 years, according ...
The Guardian - 7h