Hans Breiter, a psychiatrist and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, says scientists have been hoping to develop this type of application since fMRI was first developed in the early 1990s. "It's taken a long time for the needed technological improvements to fall into place," he says. "I'm pleased someone is going to do hard work to try to make it work." He cautions that imaging areas known to be hyperactive in drug addicts, such as the anterior cingulate and the insula, is very challenging and requires a lot of technical expertise. "One caveat is whether the exercises done with real-time fMRI can then be extended to real-life situations," adds Rita Goldstein, a research scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, NY. "But the prediction is that it will be like exercise, strengthening the functions subserved by those specific brain regions." If the feedback technique is effective, it could ultimately be combined with other treatment strategies, such as desensitization or medication. Some behavioral treatments, for example, teach drug abusers to try to dissociate drugs cues, such as a needle or a cigarette, from the emotional feelings these visual stimuli elicit. Cycloserine, an antibiotic that also affects the brain's learning and memory systems, has been shown to boost the effectiveness of this approach for people with a fear of heights. Volkow suggests that the same could possibly be done with real-time fMRI and addiction. |
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Creating a Heart
04/22/2008
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
phoenix on 10/30/2006 at 10:16 AM
127
RedSevenOne on 10/30/2006 at 6:45 PM
18
Further to this, I have to question the economic viability of using an fMRI as a tool to mitigate addictive behavior. The one benefit I do see is the possibility of constructive intimidation, a craft I practice myself during interventions., however the shear operational economies of such a machine would likely eliminate it from all but the most exclusive of clientelle. For my part, I am in the process of storyboarding the triple bypass surgery about to be done on a Very Scared Crystal Meth addict, at his request which will be ultimately used for just such constructive intimidation. Of course tit is widely recognized that when dealing with Crystal Meth addiction, none of the conventional treatment rules apply.