On August 25th, a collection of leading doctors from some of the most prestigious universities and hospitals in the nation met at the National Institutes of Health.
Amongst the conference attendees was a doctor with a very different kind of employer; the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
So what kind of conference would compel such a small and secretive government agency — better known for advanced weapon systems, drones, and robotics — to send a man to participate?
This conference was part of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. (Oh, those clever acronyms…)
DARPA is particularly interested in pre-clinical testing and early feasibility studies for next-generation stimulation and recording technologies that conference experts discussed.
Simply put, DARPA wants to start electrocuting soldiers, for their own good.
Support Our Troops
DARPA being what it is, there always seems to be a unsettling quality to the nature of the research it supports.
In this case, the plan is to alter the emotions of soldiers by monitoring brain activity in real-time and directly stimulating parts of their brains with electricity.
It sounds pretty sinister on the surface, but this isn’t about full-blown manipulation. The end goal is to find ways to blunt the mental toll of negative emotions soldiers must endure.
To that end, DARPA is spending $70 million to boost nascent technologies that may lead to a revolutionary treatment for post traumatic stress disorder.
Upwards of 20% of combat veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq came home with PTSD, major depression, or both.
For many of them, medication does little except add addiction to dangerous drugs to the mix. In 2010, at least 22 veterans committed suicide per day, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs.
DARPA’s timing couldn’t be better. Just look at the scandals and chronic underfunding plaguing the DVA and you’ll see how painfully insufficient our government’s response to, and ability to address, this crisis has become.
Early evidence suggests that this type of treatment could dramatically lessen the severity of the problems the DVA (specifically the VHA) faces.
Not only is brain stimulation sig
nificantly more effective than the antidepressants currently used, it also should greatly reduce the cost to taxpayers.
As you can see from the chart to the right, the average cost of care for veterans with PTSD is dramatically higher than the cost of care for those without it.
For those unfortunate souls that have PTSD and a traumatic brain injury, the cost of care easily tops $40,000 in just the first four years, with an increase in cost over time.
PTSD and traumatic brain injury treatment lasts a lifetime and there is no real cure.
If DARPA gets what it wants, this will no longer be the case.
How It Works
DARPA is focusing on treatments using small implanted scanners and electrodes. The scanners detect very specific brain patterns associated with intense negative emotions, then the electrodes give a very small and targeted shock to certain regions of the brain.
What makes this work is neuroplasticity, or the way our brains change neural pathways and synapses due to changes in behavior, environment, neural processes, thinking, emotions, and damage.
This isn’t anything new, but it has been poorly understood until now.
For example, we’ve seen plenty of evidence that blind people tend to have much better hearing than those who can see. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that that scientists proved it by mapping out exactly how the brain rewires regions of the brain normally associated with vision to boost hearing.
In the case of PTSD, the region of the brain that is strongly tied to emotions learns to associate intense fight-or-flight responses with certain memories. To stop it, this association needs to be undone and a different response needs to be encouraged.
Imagine that a soldier is starting to experience a traumatic reaction. A device will detect the severity of it in real-time. If the reaction is strong enough, a small and proportional jolt disrupts the activity in the brain and reduces the soldier’s emotional response.
When the emotional strength of a memory is reduced, the memory doesn’t reinforce itself in long-term memory. Over time these devices lessen the effects of PTSD whenever a terrible memory surfaces.
The promise of this new kind of treatment, both for better outcomes and lower costs, isn’t limited to soldiers either.
Electrical stimulation has already been used to greatly improved the lives of people suffering from neurological diseases and disorders.
More Than Just PTSD
There are already about 100,000 patients using deep brain stimulation devices to counteract the effects of Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, dystonia, and major depression.
There would be many more patients using them, if it weren’t for the invasive surgery needed to insert a wire into a skull and a battery pack under the skin.
Doctors are justifiably hesitant to recommend these devices unless they are absolutely necessary.
Thankfully for many veterans and patients with PTSD, brain injuries, neurological damage or degenerative conditions, there is a far better alternative entering the market.
Another part of the Department of Defense just started backing it too.
The U.S. Army recently decided to focus on radically improving the recovery and quality of life for 660,000 active and retired soldiers with traumatic brain injuries and the 7.7 million Americans with PTSD.
All that is required is a small external device with a mouthguard. It has already vastly improved the condition of patients with traumatic brain injuries and multiple sclerosis in early trials.
After seeing the results, the Army had so much faith in this new non-invasive treatment method that it decided to cover the entire cost of clinical studies for the small company that holds the patent.
The Army may have just beaten DARPA at its own game, but the company holding the patent is poised to be the real winner.
The disorders this device could alleviate diseases and conditions affecting 140 million people, and which cost $950 billion per year.
Nick Hodge has been following this company for some time, and has started to extensively cover it in Early Advantage. You can find out more about his Early Advantage publication here.
