Podcast #16: Inside the Mind: The Future of Deep Brain Stimulation with Dr. Cameron McIntyre
By
Leonard Zwelling
During our visit to Duke Medical School for the Medical Alumni Council meeting in May of 2025, Dr. Kleinerman and I were privileged to hear a presentation on the clinical use of deep brain stimulation to treat refractory neurologic and psychiatric disorders. Dr. McIntyre was one of the presenters and he is our guest on the podcast to discuss this remarkable technology.
Over the past hundred or so years, neurologists have been able to localize the anatomic circuits that are dysfunctional in a number of neurologic diseases. Often it has been trauma to specific brain regions or strokes to these regions that lead to specific clinical pathologies thus identifying the anatomy of the disease. Now, electrodes can be implanted in these areas, stimulate them, and reverse the pathology. This has been used successfully in Parkinson’s Disease, essential tremor, dystonia, and epilepsy. Newer studies are targeting depression and PTSD. In the latter case, the aberrant brain signals are sensed by the electrodes that emit a counter signal that interrupts the brain circuitry that produces PTSD symptoms thus providing remarkable clinical improvement. It is a true brain pacemaker.
We also discuss whether this technology can be used to enhance neural function in patients with severe disabilities and where the boundaries of this research will be in the next few decades. Can we talk directly to the brain and what will that tell us? The ethics of this research will be as challenging as the neurosurgery and psychiatry.
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