A tribute to Jose M.R. Delgado (1915–2011): The pioneer of electric brain-stimulation

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S768-S768
Author(s):  
L. De Jonge ◽  
S. Petrykiv ◽  
J. Fennema ◽  
P. Michielsen ◽  
M. Arts

IntroductionJosé Manuel Rodriguez Delgado (1915–2011), a Spanish physiologist, was among the first scientist to perform electric brain stimulation in both animals and humans. His work on brain-stimulation research during the 1960s and 1970s was innovative but also controversial.ObjectivesTo present the scientific papers of Jose Delgado on psychosurgery.AimsTo review available literature and to show evidence that Jose Delgado made a significant contribution to the development of psychosurgery.MethodsA biography and private papers are presented and discussed followed by a literature review.ResultsDelgado showed that with electrical brain stimulation one could evoke well-organized complex behavior in primates. A rhesus monkey was stimulated with an electrode implanted inside the red nucleus, followed by a complex sequence of events. After stimulation of an area three millimeters from the red nucleus, the rhesus monkey just yawned. Delgado also investigated the mechanisms of aggressive behavior in other animals. Stimulation of the caudate nucleus by remote control in a fighting bully resulted in sudden paralysis. In some human patients suffering from depression, euphoria was induced after stimulation of the septum.ConclusionDelgado pioneered the brain electrode implantation in order to electrically stimulate specific brain areas for treatment epilepsy and of different types of mental illness. He was severely criticized. His studies, however, paved the way for new modulation techniques such as the development of deep brain stimulation.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiro Horisawa ◽  
Kotaro Kohara ◽  
Masato Murakami ◽  
Atsushi Fukui ◽  
Takakazu Kawamata ◽  
...  

The field of Forel (FF) is a subthalamic area through which the pallidothalamic tracts originating from the globus pallidus internus (GPi) traverse. The FF was used as a stereotactic surgical target (ablation and stimulation) to treat cervical dystonia in the 1960s and 1970s. Although recent studies have reappraised the ablation and stimulation of the pallidothalamic tract at FF for Parkinson’s disease, the efficacy of deep brain stimulation of FF (FF-DBS) for dystonia has not been well investigated. To confirm the efficacy and stimulation-induced adverse effects of FF-DBS, three consecutive patients with medically refractory dystonia who underwent FF-DBS were analyzed (tongue protrusion dystonia, cranio-cervico-axial dystonia, and hemidystonia). Compared to the Burke-Fahn-Marsden Dystonia Rating Scale-Movement Scale scores before surgery (23.3 ± 12.7), improvements were observed at 1 week (8.3 ± 5.9), 3 months (5.3 ± 5.9), and 6 months (4.7 ± 4.7, p = 0.0282) after surgery. Two patients had stimulation-induced complications, including bradykinesia and postural instability, all well controlled by stimulation adjustments.


2003 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 708-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun-ichi Murata ◽  
Mayumi Kitagawa ◽  
Haruo Uesugi ◽  
Hisatoshi Saito ◽  
Yoshinobu Iwasaki ◽  
...  

Object. Tremors, including its proximal component, are often refractory to standard thalamic surgery. In the 1960s the posterior part of the subthalamic white matter was reported to be a promising target in treating various forms of tremor, but was also found to be associated with adverse effects. Advances involving a less invasive method, that is, deep brain stimulation (DBS), has led to a reappraisal of this target. Methods. Eight patients with severe essential tremor involving the proximal arm were treated using unilateral stimulation of the posterior part of the subthalamic white matter. The tentative target was situated in the area lateral to the red nucleus and posteromedial to the subthalamic nucleus. Macrostimulation was used to find the optimal site to suppress tremor. Through a quadripolar DBS lead, somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) were recorded. Improvement of tremor was evaluated based on a modified clinical tremor rating scale. Anatomical locations of all contacts were assessed using stereotactic guidance and represented on the Schaltenbrand—Wahren atlas. Conclusions. A characteristic diphasic pattern of SSEPs reaffirmed the electrophysiological endorsement of this target. Tremors, both proximal and distal, were remarkably improved in all patients. The rate of improvement, as indicated by the total tremor score, was a mean of 81%. Axial tremors in the legs and head were also improved. Most of the contacts associated with remarkable improvement were located in the posterior part of the subthalamic white matter (the zona incerta and prelemniscal radiation). Neither major complications nor neurological deterioration was observed. The authors concluded that DBS of the posterior part of the subthalamic white matter together with SSEP recording is a safe and effective method to ameliorate severe intractable tremors.


Neuroreport ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nan Li ◽  
Li Gao ◽  
Xue-lian Wang ◽  
Lei Chen ◽  
Wei Fang ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Flanagan

This article traces Ken Russell's explorations of war and wartime experience over the course of his career. In particular, it argues that Russell's scattered attempts at coming to terms with war, the rise of fascism and memorialisation are best understood in terms of a combination of Russell's own tastes and personal style, wider stylistic and thematic trends in Euro-American cinema during the 1960s and 1970s, and discourses of collective national experience. In addition to identifying Russell's recurrent techniques, this article focuses on how the residual impacts of the First and Second World Wars appear in his favoured genres: literary adaptations and composer biopics. Although the article looks for patterns and similarities in Russell's war output, it differentiates between his First and Second World War films by indicating how he engages with, and temporarily inhabits, the stylistic regime of the enemy within the latter group.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Burton

Brainwashing assumed the proportions of a cultural fantasy during the Cold War period. The article examines the various political, scientific and cultural contexts of brainwashing, and proceeds to a consideration of the place of mind control in British spy dramas made for cinema and television in the 1960s and 1970s. Particular attention is given to the films The Mind Benders (1963) and The Ipcress File (1965), and to the television dramas Man in a Suitcase (1967–8), The Prisoner (1967–8) and Callan (1967–81), which gave expression to the anxieties surrounding thought-control. Attention is given to the scientific background to the representations of brainwashing, and the significance of spy scandals, treasons and treacheries as a distinct context to the appearance of brainwashing on British screens.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chik Collins ◽  
Ian Levitt

This article reports findings of research into the far-reaching plan to ‘modernise’ the Scottish economy, which emerged from the mid-late 1950s and was formally adopted by government in the early 1960s. It shows the growing awareness amongst policy-makers from the mid-1960s as to the profoundly deleterious effects the implementation of the plan was having on Glasgow. By 1971 these effects were understood to be substantial with likely severe consequences for the future. Nonetheless, there was no proportionate adjustment to the regional policy which was creating these understood ‘unwanted’ outcomes, even when such was proposed by the Secretary of State for Scotland. After presenting these findings, the paper offers some consideration as to their relevance to the task of accounting for Glasgow's ‘excess mortality’. It is suggested that regional policy can be seen to have contributed to the accumulation of ‘vulnerabilities’, particularly in Glasgow but also more widely in Scotland, during the 1960s and 1970s, and that the impact of the post-1979 UK government policy agenda on these vulnerabilities is likely to have been salient in the increase in ‘excess mortality’ evident in subsequent years.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 189-216
Author(s):  
Jamil Hilal

The mid-1960s saw the beginnings of the construction of a Palestinian political field after it collapsed in 1948, when, with the British government’s support of the Zionist movement, which succeeded in establishing the state of Israel, the Palestinian national movement was crushed. This article focuses mainly on the Palestinian political field as it developed in the 1960s and 1970s, the beginnings of its fragmentation in the 1990s, and its almost complete collapse in the first decade of this century. It was developed on a structure characterized by the dominance of a center where the political leadership functioned. The center, however, was established outside historic Palestine. This paper examines the components and dynamics of the relationship between the center and the peripheries, and the causes of the decline of this center and its eventual disappearance, leaving the constituents of the Palestinian people under local political leadership following the collapse of the national representation institutions, that is, the political, organizational, military, cultural institutions and sectorial organizations (women, workers, students, etc.) that made up the PLO and its frameworks. The paper suggests that the decline of the political field as a national field does not mean the disintegration of the cultural field. There are, in fact, indications that the cultural field has a new vitality that deserves much more attention than it is currently assigned.


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