A device in her brain delivers jolts of electricity when it detects abnormal neural activity associated with obsessive thoughts.
Amber Pearson has had a severe form of obsessive compulsive disorder since she was in high school. She would wash her hands so much they became raw and bled. Her bedtime routine easily took 45 minutes because it involved checking that all the doors and windows were closed and the stove was off. She was so afraid of food contamination that she couldn’t eat next to other people. Even on holidays, she ate on the couch away from her family. Therapy and medication didn’t help.
For example, because one of Pearson’s triggers was seafood contamination, the team gave her seafood to handle while monitoring her brain activity as she became distressed. By analyzing these brain recordings, Halpern was able to identify a unique neural signature in the ventral striatum that corresponded to times when Pearson felt she had to act on her compulsions. “We found that low-frequency oscillations would elevate in power during those moments,” Halpern says.
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