Manny Laureano

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,246867,00.html

The next ethics battle for doctors and patients. Can you imagine being able to end any addiction by having a surgeon remove part of your brain?

Will we become in 50 years, if this becomes a popular elective surgery, incapable of fighting our own demons through sheer force of will? Will this lead to further study to control human behavior through surgical means?

This could be a rather fascinating beginning to... who knows what?

Pick a psychological "flaw" in your personality. If you could spend $20,000 to have it cured by surgery, would you? I don't think I would because I'm too cheap.

This cool be a very cool discussion. Or we could pay people to discuss it for us, whichever.

ML

Solar Bell

An ex president could have his addiction fixed by a simple little surgery too!! Call Lorena!

-cw-

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The Willard of Oz

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tpter1

Great. Just great. I love how these doctors, the ones who will benefit monetarily the most from this, are so quick to jump on the band wagon and promote this research.

Yet another excuse for people to not be held responsible and accountable for their actions.

Remember this tune: "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than to have to have a frontal labotamy"?

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-Glenn
"Roses have thorns; shining waters mud. Clouds and eclipses stain the moon and the sun; and history reeks of the wrongs we have done. After today, after today, consider me gone."- Sting

Manny Laureano

Well, in fairness, Glenn, they haven't done it...YET. It's just my musings on what I feel is the inevitable, however.

ML

Manny Laureano

OH, wow! I just thought of this: what about the first surgeon who performs the surgery to get rid of the urge to smoke, botches the surgery and causes you to be addicted to something else?!

That's it... my kids are going to become lawyers!

ML

Solar Bell

Don't forget..."First we kill all the lawyers."

-cw-

__________________
Chuck Willard
The Willard of Oz

"Don't be afraid to see what you see."
Ronald Reagan

Mikey

What if I DON'T want to cure my sex addiction?

Vulgano Brother

Treating addictions naturally occupies a lot of time and effort here at the Mission and theories have always abounded on where various addictions are “housed.” Are they part of what we call “character,” or are they the result of subtle imbalances between multiple neuronal systems? Science tells us the latter. The Utopian dream is to one day find that seat of bad thoughts and feelings within the brain and to fix it with pharmacy or surgery. No more anxiety, no more depression, no more problems! Also, no more Beethoven, Shostakovich or _____________ (fill in the blank with the composer you most relate too). Goodbye Hindemith Sonate, hello Endless Parade of Theme and Variation Cornet solos. This is the philosophical (albeit Vulganoized) version of the Clockwork Orange future.

On the practical side, knowing as we do how elusive the “perfect” mouthpiece and trumpet is, how can we honestly expect to find the “perfect” brain wiring and chemistry?

On the political side, how do we, as a society, best spend our money wisely? Research, yes, but please don’t forget the guys sleeping under bridges and eating out of dumpsters. They are real, and many even like Beethoven.

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tennis_the_menace

brain talk reminds me of when i watched Surgery Saved My Life on the discovery channel.
they were performing brain surgery on this guy who had to stay awake during the surgey.
they would show him a card with a picture on it and he was suppose to tell them what it was. when they touched his brain with this metal thing and he said the correct answer they new they could remove that part of the brain to get the tumor out, but when they touched a certain part in his brain, he wouldn't be able to tell them the picture was of an apple, he just said um, um, um...... it was weird and interesting.

gzent

I don't see a surgical procedure to cure addiction happening any time soon for a couple reasons. First, surgeons don't like to cut people open if they can avoid it, especially their brains.

Second, there's not enough proof that the side effect in this case would have the desired effect on a 'normal' brain.

Third, the human brain is wonderfully redundant and adaptive, not to mention complex. You could have this 'addiction center' removed and the brain would try to reset itself to a normal state and mimic the original thought patterns in a different part of the brain. Its happened before where people with accidents or tumors lost a huge chunk of their brain and were able to recover most of the lost functionality through rehabilitation and reprogramming, if you will, of the remaining healthy portions.


my 2c.

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