Brain implants don’t change a person’s sense of self. Hear why

In nan 5th section of The Deep End, Jon Nelson describes slump arsenic a “no-casserole disease,” 1 that group are often acrophobic to admit because of nan stigma astir intelligence wellness disorders. This section lets listeners into nan acquisition of having a illness that’s often misunderstood, and why that tin beryllium truthful harmful for group who struggle pinch depression. There’s a philosophical perspective here, too: Where does a person’s self travel from? And really does nan encephalon fresh into that answer?

TRANSCRIPT

Laura Sanders: This section deals pinch intelligence illness, depression, and suicide. Please perceive pinch care. Previously connected The Deep End.

Shannon O’Neill: And DBS is not going to springiness you happiness. It’s not going to conscionable beryllium a instrumentality that turns connected happiness 24/7. It’s to get you retired of nan spread and beryllium connected coagulated ground.

Jon Nelson: So has nan instrumentality made maine happy? The instrumentality has made maine disease-free. That’s each that I needed it to do. It has not taken distant nan emblematic emotions successful life that I’m going to person forever, and those are happiness, sadness, anger. I’m gonna person those and I’m going to person to study really to unrecorded pinch having those.

Sanders: On nan past episode, we heard really Jon had to make room for caller emotions erstwhile his slump had lifted. On this episode, we’re going to talk not truthful overmuch astir depression, but astir shame, nan shame and nan judgement of having a intelligence disorder, and each excessively often, nan shame and nan judgement of nan curen group seek. We’ll research whether there’s thing different astir changing our brains versus immoderate different portion of our bodies. This is The Deep End. I’m Laura Sanders.

Like galore who person struggled pinch a intelligence illness, Emily Hollenbeck has plentifulness of stories of group not rather getting it. She told maine astir immoderate of these encounters, and 1 was peculiarly bad. It was erstwhile she was going successful for ECT. That’s electroconvulsive therapy, and it’s erstwhile doctors nonstop large doses of energy into nan encephalon to origin a controlled seizure. She was astir to beryllium anesthetized and her accustomed anesthesiologist wasn’t astir that day.

Emily: One time this caller feline came successful and I’m laying connected nan table, like, it’s a very easy procedure. I really look guardant to the, you know, nan anesthesiologist doing his job, origin past I tin conscionable return my nap, you know, aftermath up later and person my small snack. But he was prepping everything, and he looks astatine maine and goes, “Oh, you person a Ph.D. successful psychology.” I was for illustration “Yeah, like, I don’t cognize wherever this is going. It’s 8 a.m. Let’s go. Let’s get this done.” And he conscionable like, his eyes conscionable settled connected maine goes, “Huh, that’s ironic.”

Sanders: Oh my God.

Emily: And location was this palpable soundlessness successful nan room, and I conscionable benignant of felt like, nary 1 said anything, and I deliberation it’s astir apt 1 of those moments wherever everyone was conscionable benignant of shocked, like, what are you talking about? Like, why would you opportunity that? But I’m reasoning for illustration this feline is an anesthesiologist, like, of each nan professionals, he should know. And of people successful that infinitesimal pinch stigma, I mean, nan problem is you’re ever emotion for illustration you’re nan 1 who can’t opportunity anything. So what really sticks retired astir that to maine is pinch ECT oftentimes, you know, your representation is simply a small blurry. It’s a small fuzzy. I retrieve that moment. It pops up, you know, each now and past and it still, like, hits maine successful nan chest, like, if this expert astatine this really renowned infirmary is saying this to me, what are different group thinking?

Sanders: So location she was, utterly susceptible and successful nan hands of a expert who intelligibly didn’t understand her illness astatine all. And who was astir to springiness her narcotics to make her unconscious.

Emily: And I deliberation about, you know, for illustration for nan procedure, like, oftentimes they use, you know, they person to usage nan heavy-hitting anesthesia because they request to sound you out. And I wanted to opportunity something. I retrieve I’m conscionable virtually biting my lingua and being like, “We’re not gonna sass nan feline who’s injecting nan propofol.”

Sanders: Feeling diminished, judged, and not understood is unluckily thing that happens a batch to group pinch depression, and different intelligence illnesses too. The shame this causes tin lead group to hide their struggles.

Jon: The stigma keeps group silent. And nan soundlessness and you staying successful your ain caput and you not being capable to definitive really you consciousness conscionable gets worse and worse and worse. And nan full goal, for illustration I said, is to, to, is to person you return your ain life. And nan much you enactment silent, nan bigger opportunity you person to do that. And I despise it. And I despise nan truth that it exists. It is real. The magnitude of times that I person had group opportunity to me, “Snap retired of it. What do you, dude, you got, you sewage a awesome life. You’re succeeding professionally, you sewage awesome kids, your wife’s awesome. Like, what, what do you person to beryllium depressed about? What do you person to beryllium depressed for?”

Sanders: Jon has ways of explaining it that really deed home. He calls slump a no-casserole disease. Cancer? People bring a casserole to your house. Broke a leg? Had a baby? Casserole. Depression? No casserole.

Jon: Cancer is horrific. It’s horrible. It’s awful. Nobody deserves it. Nobody wants it. But if you walk from cancer, you’re a warrior. You gave it each you got. People are bringing casseroles complete to your house. Five-K races are going successful your name, right?

Sanders: But pinch slump it’s different.

Jon: You show group that you person it, and group will look astatine you and not opportunity anything. Can you ideate telling personification you person cancer, and them looking astatine you not saying anything, right? Awkward. Weird. If you return that nonstop aforesaid business for terrible intelligence illness, your full mind’s getting wrecked. You’re doing it mostly successful silence. People aren’t, aren’t really progressive successful helping retired because of that. If you, if you are unfastened astir it, there’s judgement from it. And past if you pass, you return your ain life, truthful your ain life, truthful correct location you’re stigmatized. You’re stigmatized because of nan connection suicide. You surely aren’t getting life insurance. You person the, nan family, “Can you judge that their dada took their life, right?” That’s what nan illness is. The illness laughs astatine you moreover aft death.

Sanders: Jon remembers a friend, a bully friend, who yet sewage it.

Jon: With astir diseases, Parkinson’s, cancer, you don’t person to understand what they are. You conscionable cognize it sucks, right? Like, that sucks you person that, right? For immoderate reason, group request to understand what slump is for them to get it and for them to attraction astir it. But I had a immense penetration aft surgery. A week later, a friend came over. He’s been very adjuvant passim each this, you know, we’d meet and locomotion erstwhile I could. We, you know, he was very, you know, he’d nonstop maine nan matter and beryllium supportive. And he said, “How was it?” I said, “You person nary idea.” I was like, “Dude, I tin do normal things now.” I can, you know, which astir group wouldn’t understand that being capable to return your telephone telephone is massive. Being capable to locomotion outside? Massive. And truthful I’m sitting location telling him, it’s a week later, I’m like, “Man, I haven’t had a suicidal thought successful a week.” And he looked astatine me, and he was like, “You’ve had a suicidal thought before?” And it was such, like, a mind-opening acquisition for me, wherever I’m like, this is an empathetic, kind, caring person, and they person nary thought nan hellhole that you spell through.

Sanders: Patient 001 besides struggles to get nan acquisition crossed to people.

Patient 001: I’ve ever explained to people, group don’t understand. Depression is not a characteristic flaw. And what I mean by that is anytime you spot group termination themselves, group that haven’t gone done depression, they’re like, “Oh, they springiness up.” People don’t springiness up. They’re successful a fire. They’re successful a occurrence and it doesn’t stop. And not only that, not only are they successful a occurrence and it doesn’t stop, it’s almost for illustration you’re possessed by a demon, for illustration your brain, what it’s feeding you is wrong. It’s conscionable telling you, “Kill yourself. Kill yourself each day, each day, each second.”

Sanders: There is truthful overmuch astir slump that group who haven’t had it don’t understand, can’t understand. But to really heap on, location are moreover much misconceptions astir curen for depression. Emily remembers telling personification astir her upcoming ECT treatments.

Emily: I retrieve I was astatine a party, and I was telling a friend of a friend, you know, ‘Oh, I’m gonna have, commencement ECT adjacent week.” And she goes, “How could you do that to yourself?” It’s like, if you saw nan procedure, it’s 1 of those boring things. Like, it lasts for illustration 10 minutes and you don’t consciousness anything. But, you know, this female felt nan request to for illustration correct maine astir my, you know, aesculapian choice.

Sanders: The real-world fallout from each those threat judgments are why I’m not identifying diligent 001 by his name. He useful successful an intensely intelligence and competitory field, and pinch a caller babe astatine home, he can’t consequence losing business complete people’s mistaken assumptions. He remembers telling his family he had decided to unpaid for nan DBS experiment. They were skeptical astatine first.

Patient 001: When you spell to your mom and you explain, “Mom, this is what I’m considering.” And she’s like, “Are you insane? You’re going to beryllium a guinea pig basically? You’re going to person encephalon surgery?” It sounds for illustration a bad sci-fi movie, right? At first, they were like, “What are you doing? This is truthful desperate. There’s truthful galore different things, you get yada yada yada yada yada.” And past it’s like, “Oh, you’re back. You were right.” You cognize what I mean? Yeah, truthful I was like, I’m telling you. So that’s why I didn’t spell to my family to benignant of get their approval. I went to group that had gone done what I was going through, and it’s not because your family’s bad. Again, that’s perspective, it’s perspective.

Sanders: Don’t get maine wrong. Patient 001 adores his family, but that doesn’t mean they afloat understood. In a way, their guidance tracks pinch nan bad reputations of different treatments for depression, and intelligence disorders much generally. Since their emergence to prominence successful nan 1990s, antidepressants person been vilified by critics. Some group opportunity these narcotics tin bargain emotions and alteration personalities. ECT’s estimation is still suffering from nan harm done by movies for illustration One Flew Over nan Cuckoo’s Nest. And moreover talk therapy tin bring shame and secrecy, though overmuch little truthful coming than successful nan past. So possibly it’s not astonishing that nan thought of electrodes implanted successful nan encephalon raises a full caller group of assumptions, of misgivings and judgments. But this made maine wonder, “Why?” What’s nan quality betwixt antidepressants, for instance, and DBS? Is location one? Emily has thought astir this favoritism a lot.

Emily: I deliberation if you talk to personification successful this time and age, this would beryllium my guess, and you said, oh, I’m taking Prozac and I’m, I’m frightened it’s going to alteration nan halfway of me. Then we would beryllium like, why? And reasoning astir that statement pinch DBS, I could spot why that would beryllium perchance for illustration much absorbing to someone, aliases perchance much plausible, but biochemically, if you look astatine what’s happening, and you say, “Oh, you know, Prozac is changing maine aliases DBS is changing me,” what does that moreover really mean?

People are overmuch much concerned astir modifications to brain-based, you know, for illustration encephalon insubstantial aliases encephalon activity than they would beryllium to nan kidney. And evidently that makes sense, because a batch of what we acquisition comes done our brains, but is that really wherever our aforesaid is? And why are group truthful delicate astir nan self, particularly erstwhile coming to reasoning astir invasive treatments versus thing for illustration Prozac?

Sanders: I’ve been wondering nan aforesaid thing. What sets nan encephalon apart? And why are group truthful uncomfortable pinch attempts to alteration it? It’s a portion of our body, conscionable for illustration nan lungs and nan bosom and nan kidneys, for illustration Emily says. So why do we get squeamish erstwhile it comes to our brains?

In my reporting, I came crossed immoderate examples of astonishing broadside effects from DBS. One absorbing lawsuit study sticks pinch me, and it highlights really nan subject present is very acold from clear. A Dutch man was being treated for obsessive-compulsive disorder. When his stimulation was on, he developed a marque caller and aggravated emotion of Johnny Cash hits. Especially Ring of Fire, Folsom Prison Blues, and Sunday Morning Coming Down. Before DBS, his favorites were Dutch connection songs and classics by nan Beatles and The Rolling Stones. But erstwhile his DBS was on, it was nan Man successful Black each nan way. When his stimulation diminished aliases erstwhile his batteries ran down, nan man subconsciously switched backmost to listening to his aged favorites. The anecdote mightiness sound a small spot trivial. This guy’s caller philharmonic sensation didn’t fuss him. It’s a very insignificant point successful nan expansive strategy of things, but that change, that switch, arguably bores consecutive to nan halfway of our unease.

So galore of america see our brains, and nan minds they create, nan bedrock of our identity. After all, it’s wherever our memories live, our thinking, our personality, our worries, our sensation successful music. So erstwhile a illness attacks nan encephalon aliases a curen changes nan brain, we get nervous. None of america likes nan thought of having a encephalon implant show america what euphony we like, particularly if we’re not moreover alert of it. The stakes are much, overmuch higher erstwhile it comes to really we feel, to our emotions.

Reporting this story, I really heard a batch of jokes astir being a cyborg, being Bluetooth enabled, bionic. People would benignant of laughter arsenic they said it, but is location thing much to these offhand comments? Does nan encephalon implant alteration who you are successful immoderate basal way? Here’s what Jon thinks.

Jon: I tin only show you that it is, it is nan nonstop other of that question. It purely eliminates nan disease. It purely eliminates nan factors and nan issues that travel astir pinch nan disease. That’s it. It does not, you know, sci-fi wise and movies and skits and each these shows we’ve seen, you know, it does thing astir that. And, you know, I’ve had, what’s nan word? People person said before, like, “You’re nan bionic man,” for illustration friends of mine, right? They’ve said that and you just, yeah, yeah, wholly dude.

Sanders: Amanda echoes that sentiment.

Amanda: Like I don’t consciousness for illustration it’s, thing I’ve done has ever changed my who I americium aliases my personality. I’m still nan aforesaid person, conscionable like, suffering much aliases less. I consciousness for illustration it lets maine beryllium maine more, origin I’m not fighting pinch myself to beryllium alive.

Sanders: Emily says that who she is, is simply a choice. Her slump is nan point that took that prime away.

Emily: It really altered who I was and of people it’s for illustration this insidious progress. It’s not just, 1 time you person slump afloat blown. But I look backmost and I deliberation astir moments of like, you know, 1 peculiar disaster, disastrous gathering pinch nan committee, and I want to spell backmost and hug myself, and I’m almost upset for illustration that I berated myself truthful much. But astatine that moment, that’s what my encephalon was predisposed to. In that moment, successful those times, what really felt salient was, “I americium uniquely and horribly bad. Something is uniquely, horribly incorrect pinch me.” And now I don’t person that feeling. So which of those is correct? I don’t know, but I cognize which 1 I for illustration better, like. So I, I don’t know, it’s not a satisfactory reply for your question, but I deliberation what really gets to nan bosom of it is, I consciousness for illustration I’m untethered, and I person an expertise now to attraction connected nan things that I really do attraction about, and that’s wherever my aforesaid lies.

Sanders: Shannon O’Neill, nan scientist who has worked pinch Jon and others, has a measurement to thief group deliberation astir their identity, astir their self, arsenic they study to unrecorded pinch DBS.

O’Neill: Do, I do person immoderate thoughts of that, of, of identifying who nan aforesaid is extracurricular of depression. And I deliberation that those are, those are adjacent steps that we modulation to erstwhile they person that absurd elastic thinking. One workout I do is, it’s called nan admirable personification exercise. And it says, deliberation astir nan individual that you perfectly respect successful your life, not for fame, wealth, beauty, money, but who they are, arsenic a person. And it tin beryllium anyone you want. And usually that personification they identify, and nan reasons why, really gets to their halfway values of what they admit and what they want to unrecorded by pinch meaning and purpose. And we effort to move towards that of really tin we person committed action successful that type of yourself going forward.

Sanders: This measurement of defining yourself strikes maine arsenic peculiarly meaningful. This is purposeful. This is intentional. It’s defining yourself successful nan measurement that you choose. These days, Jon says, his aforesaid is lighter. Without nan poison coursing done his body, Jon feels better, much energized, much coming successful his life. But arsenic his regular surveys make very clear, he’s still a small spot crabby.

Jon: So poison was measurement complete here, was 9 retired of 10, right, earlier nan disease. After nan illness it’s astatine 0. I complaint intelligence unit field. So what intelligence unit section is, is, “Why can’t I locomotion nan dog, right? Like why can’t I do this?” Like, that was astatine 9 retired of 10, 10 retired of 10. That’s now retired of 1 retired of 10, right? I’m still a dude, I still person difficult times doing definite things, but like, you know, going from a 10 retired of 10 to 1 retired of 10 is incredible. And past nan 1 that’s beautiful overmuch remained accordant is irritability. And truthful irritability for maine was astatine for illustration a 6 aliases a 7 aliases an 8. Guess what? It’s still astatine a 6 aliases a 7 aliases an 8. And so, for illustration my position to them connected that is, it’s not that nan room didn’t work. I conjecture I’m conscionable for illustration a cranky middle-aged dude now, right? Like that conscionable is what it is.

Sanders: Barbara is 1 of champion judges of who Jon is now. Is he personification caller pinch DBS?

Barbara: I, like, yeah, for illustration you can’t opportunity his aged self, there’s, he never, like, wasn’t himself done this full process. It’s always, it’s just, he is much comfortable and happy and relaxed and productive and coming and engaged. So nan things that nan illness was trying to bargain from him, he’s getting back.

Sanders: So, no, Jon pinch a encephalon implant is not a caller bionic Jon. He’s conscionable Jon. On nan adjacent and last episode, we’re going to look to nan early for Jon and to nan early for DBS.

Mayberg: This is ne'er wherever I expected to be. But you’re here, truthful measurement up. Why wouldn’t you measurement up? This is nan research of a lifetime, you know? Even if you, if correct this 2nd aft this call, I had to stop, I wouldn’t waste and acquisition it for 1 second. But I’d judge for illustration to spot nan past inning. And we’re each in. I’m each in.

Sanders: We’re considering a prize section that addresses your question, comments and thoughts. Please nonstop them to america astatine podcasts@sciencenews.org. If you aliases personification you cognize is facing a suicidal situation aliases affectional distress, telephone aliases matter nan 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline astatine 988. This is nan Deep End. I’m Laura Sanders. If you liked this podcast, show your friends aliases time off america a review. It helps nan show a lot. Send america your questions and comments astatine podcasts@sciencenews.org. The Deep End is simply a accumulation of Science News. It’s based connected original reporting by me, Laura Sanders. This section was produced by Helen Thompson and mixed by Ella Rowen. Our task head is Ashley Yeager. Nancy Shute is our editor successful chief. Our euphony is by Blue Dot Sessions. The podcast is made imaginable successful portion by nan Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, nan John S. James L. Knight Foundation, and nan Burroughs Wellcome Fund, pinch support from PRX.

Episode credits

Host, newsman and writer: Laura Sanders
Producer: Helen Thompson
Mixer: Ella Rowen
Sound design: Ella Rowen and Helen Thompson
Project manager: Ashley Yeager
Show art: Neil Webb
Music: Blue Dot Sessions, Epidemic Sound
Sound effects: Epidemic Sound, Mayfield Brain & Spine
Additional audio: Luke Groskin
Voice of Patient 001: Nikk Ogasa