Brain Stimulation Made Dutchman [Johnny Cash Fanatic]

2023 Author: Abraham Higgins | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 23:16

Brain stimulation made Dutchman [Johnny Cash fanatic]

The treatment of an elderly Dutch man for severe obsessive-compulsive disorder with deep stimulation (DBS) of the nucleus accumbens - a structure of the brain associated with the pleasure center - in addition to direct therapeutic results, gave an unexpected side effect: the man suddenly became a fanatical fan of the work of the American country singer Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash. Photo from johnnycash.net /

Treatment of an elderly Dutch man for severe obsessive-compulsive disorder with deep stimulation (DBS) of the nucleus accumbens - a structure of the brain associated with the pleasure center - in addition to direct therapeutic results, gave an unexpected side effect: the man suddenly became a fanatical fan of the American country singer Johnny Cash. This clinical case was reported in the journal Frontier in Behavioral Neuroscience.

The DBS method consists of surgically inserting an electrode into the area of the brain required for therapy, which is a long, thin, insulated wire connected by another wire to a brain electrostimulator (neurostimulator), which is usually implanted in the clavicle. The neurostimulator delivers constant electrical impulses to the electrode, which stimulate adjacent neurons. DBS has been used for decades to treat severe depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Parkinson's disease.

Specialists from the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), under the guidance of psychiatrist Mariska Mantione, describe one of their patients, a 60-year-old man who has been suffering from a severe form of obsessive-compulsive disorder since the age of 13 - a mental illness characterized by the development of obsessive thoughts, memories, movements and actions, as well as a variety of pathological fears. Since no other therapy worked for the patient, the doctors had to resort to DBS by stimulating the nucleus accumbens.

The treatment helped the patient, all the symptoms accompanying the disease gradually disappeared. However, about six months after the electrode was inserted into the nucleus accumbens, the man, unexpectedly for Mantion and her colleagues, announced that he had become a fanatical admirer of Johnny Cash's work, whose songs had previously left him completely indifferent. The patient said that now he literally cannot live without constantly listening to Cash's albums, during which he experiences euphoric experiences, and does not listen to anything except the songs of his favorite singer.

Meanwhile, as soon as DBS - therapy was abruptly stopped, the patient immediately returned to his previous musical addictions, which suggests a direct causal relationship between musical preferences and stimulation of the brain's pleasure center, the authors note.