NRSC 4132 Blog

Presently, we live in a society that has become increasingly dependent of pharmaceuticals as the great panacea for our discomforts and diseases. Treatment of neurological disorders is most commonly mediated through trial and error dosing of medication. This trend has steadily increased since the 1950s with the use of antidepressants and accompanied the closing of most of America?s mental hospitals. The emphasis on personal treatment and therapy has lost ground to the administration of singular chemicals (or combinations) that alter pathways with predicted but not completely understood chemical results (due to the highly interconnected nature of these chemical pathways.) This method can work wonders, many patients with severely debilitating neurological disorders such as schizophrenia often find great relief in their treatments and are able to live without or with minimal assistance. Drugs are also often a cheaper solution to the problem (compared to high levels of therapy or institutionalization.)
Unfortunately though this practice of pharmaceutical treatment has many limits; Many antidepressants that have been prescribed over the years have been found later to increase suicidal tendencies. Some people have genetic or environmentally caused dispositions that increase or decrease the drug potency or its negative side effects. Some drugs are sought out not for curing disorders or diseases but for recreational or ability enhancing uses (like the highly prevalent the misuse of adderall among students.) Then, of course, there are disorders or injuries which impair the nervous system for which there is no known treatment or specific biochemical pathway on which to act upon. For these reasons many scientists and clinicians are using nonpharmacological treatments, especially the utilization of sensory input, to help ease and heal their patients.
A great leader in this movement towards alternative forms treatment is Dr. V. S. Ramachandran. Dr. Ramachandran is a neuroscientist at the University of California San Diego and has helped people suffering with a strange neurological disorder known as phantom limb syndrome without surgery or drugs. Phantom limb syndrome is the experience of feeling of the presence of an amputated limb, it can be quite painful and is believed to be caused by lack of feedback inhibition (the brain tells the missing hand to clench but the hand cannot clench so the brain tells the hand to clench harder etc.) By using a ?mirror box? Ramachadran has found that he can use external sensory input (the patient ?seeing? his missing hand clench by using the reflection of his present hand) to override the jammed signal.
Another example of novel drug-free therapies has been the use of electrodes to serve as external sensory devices in both the treatment of vestibular malfunction and to return sight to the blind. A grid of electrodes is used in both cases and can be used as a sort of balancing meter for vestibular treatment or as a sort of low resolution black and white television (with an on electrode being white and an off electrode being black.) These treatments have shown success for many patients and may become more popular as technology advances.
These exciting and alternative therapies are of course limited, but may open the door to other forms of treatment for difficult to medicate neurological disorders.