The wires of an implanted deep brain stimulation
(DBS) device are visible as white lines in an X-ray of the skull.
Large white areas around maxilla and mandible are metal dentures and are
unrelated to the DBS device
Artist's conception of two DBS wires/electrodes in the human brain.
Enlarged artist's conception of two DBS wires/electrodes with multiple contact points in each wire.
Wirehead is a term used in science fiction
works to denote different kinds of interaction between people and
technology. The typical wirehead idea is that of a wire going into a
human's brain and safe amounts of electricity applied to the wire-conductor to directly interact with the brain, or the specific "pleasure centers" of the brain.
Written fiction
Known Space stories
In Larry Niven's Known Space stories, a wirehead is someone who has been fitted with an electronic brain implant (called a "droud" in the stories) to stimulate the pleasure centres of their brain. In the Known Space universe, wireheading is the most addictive habit known (Louis Wu
is the only given example of a recovered addict), and wireheads usually
die from neglecting themselves in favour of the ceaseless pleasure.
Wireheading is so powerful and easy that it becomes an evolutionary
pressure, selecting against that portion of Known Space humanity without
self-control. Also in this science fiction there is a device called a
"tasp" (similar to transcranial magnetic stimulation)
that does not need a surgical implant; the pleasure center of a
person's brain is found and remotely stimulated (considered a violation
without seeking the person's consent beforehand), an important device in
the Ringworld novels.
A wirehead's death is central to Niven's Gil 'the Arm' Hamilton story, "Death by Ecstasy", published by Galaxy Magazine in 1969, and a main character in the book Ringworld Engineers is a former wirehead trying to quit.
Niven's stories explain wireheads by mentioning a study in which
experimental rats had electrodes implanted at strategic locations in
their brains, so that an applied current would induce a pleasant
feeling. If the current could be obtained any time the rats pushed the
lever, they would use it over and over, ignoring food and physical
necessities until they died. Such experiments were actually conducted by
James Olds
and Peter Milner in the 1950s, first discovering the locations of such
areas, and later showing extremes to which rats would go to obtain the
stimulus again.
Mindkiller
Mindkiller, a 1982 sci-fi novel by Spider Robinson
set in the late 1980s, explores the social implications of technologies
to manipulate the brain, beginning with wireheading, the use of
electric current to stimulate the pleasure center of the brain in order
to achieve a narcotic high.
Shaper/Mechanist stories
In the Shaper/Mechanist stories of Bruce Sterling, "wirehead" is the Mechanist term for a human who has given up corporeal existence and become an infomorph.
The Terminal Man
In The Terminal Man (1972) by Michael Crichton,
forty electrodes are implanted into the brain of the character Harold
Franklin "Harry" Benson to control seizures. However, his pleasure
center is also stimulated, and his body begins producing more seizures
to receive the pleasurable sensation.
Film and Television
Brainstorm
In the 1983 film Brainstorm
a wireless brain connection machine is made. A character named Hal
Abramson abuses the device with a signal of never ending sexual
pleasure.
The Outer Limits 1995 TV series
In The Outer Limits episode named "Awakening", season three, episode 10, a neurologically impaired woman receives a brain implant to help her become more like a typical human.
The Centurions (animated series)
In episode 41, "Zone Dancer" of the 1986The Centurions
animated series, the lead character Crystal Kane is accused of "Zone
Dancing" (the series' term for computer hacking) and seen using a
"droud" to interface her brain with computer networks in what is
probably the first animated representation of cyberspace and virtual reality. The story, written by Michael Reaves,
weaves a future noir tale of cyberpunk espionage, cloning and
private-eye procedural, all set in the universe of the animated series
and makes copious references to William Gibson's Neuromancer. There is even a Zone Dancer named Gibson and, in what may be an homage to Larry Niven's Louis Wu, a cyberneticst named Dr. Wu.
House
The title character of the television show House is a physician who suffers from chronic pain. In the episode "Half-Wit", House seeks a medical procedure to stimulate the "pleasure center" of his brain.
Non-fictional examples
In 1924, Dr Hans Berger succeeded in recording the first human electroencephalogram (EEG).
Dr William Grey Walter
wrote a paper in 1938 on the EEG ELECTRO-ENCEPHALOGRAPHY, the
measurement of electrical activity in the brain using wires of different
types.
Dr Wilder Penfield and Dr Herbert Jasper stimulated the brain to find the places where the patients seizures were coming from.
Dr Reginald Bickford in 1944 is reported to have recorded the EEG of psychiatric patients who had had lobotomies.
After the 1949 Nobel prize was awarded to António Egas Moniz for the procedure of lobotomy,
a more precise method of destroying brain structures was pursued. In
the year 1955 the placing of wires into the mentally ill patient was
performed by Dr C.W. Sem Jacobsen. Dr S. Sherwood also performed wire implantation.
In the year 1961 five patients had wires implanted to treat their
mental illness and a precision leucotomy was performed for favorable
results.
In the 1950s there are several doctors who continued to place wires into the human brain. They worked on epileptic and psychiatric patients brains.
Silver and copper electrodes were found to be toxic to brain tissue. Electrodes are encapsulated by fibrous growths as a inflammatory bodily response to a foreign object.
Dr. J. Lawrence Pool wrote "Effects of Electrical Stimulation of
the Human Cerebellar Cortex" and described stimulation of a patients
brain. April 1943.
Dr. B S Nashold is used as a reference in many medical writings.
Dr. Robert Galbraith Heath
placed electrodes in his subjects' brains in the 1950s to try to treat
their mental illness. Dr. Heath wrote several papers on his work of
stimulating the various regions of the brain.
Dr. Carl Wilhelm Sem-Jacobsen "Depth-electrographic stimulation
of the human brain and behavior; from fourteen years of studies and
treatment of Parkinson's disease and mental disorders with implanted
electrodes,"
José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado also placed electrodes in his patients' brains. He called his inventions a "stimoceiver" and a "chemitrode".
- 1953 "Induced paroxysmal electrical activity in man recorded simultaneously through subcortical and scalp electrodes"
- 1955: The patient, a 27-year-old housewife "Stimulation of the amygdaloid nucleus in a schizophrenic patient" by Robert Galbraith Heath
- 1963: "Electrical self-stimulation of the brain in man" by Robert Galbraith Heath.
- 1972: A 24-year-old man with temporal lobe epilepsy, identified as patient "B-19". "He was permitted to wear the device for 3 hours at a time: on one occasion he stimulated his septal region 1,200 times, on another occasion 1,500 times, and on a third occasion 900 times. He protested each time the unit was taken from him, pleading to self-stimulate just a few more times..."
- 1986: A 48-year-old woman with chronic pain. "The patient self-stimulated throughout the day, neglecting personal hygiene and family commitments."
- 1986: To treat patients suffering from pain due to cancer Dr Young and Dr Brechner made a study of electrical stimulation of the brain.
- 2012: Cathy Hutchinson who is paralyzed had one hundred electrodes placed on the surface of her brain. With this brain–computer interface she is able to control a variety of devices.
- 2013: A 49-year-old, right-handed woman had multiple electrodes placed in her brain for epilepsy. She reported an orgasmic ecstasy following the stimulation of the left hippocampus.
- 2016: The New England Journal of Medicine describes a growing do-it-yourself (DIY) medical engineering culture that includes DIY transcranial direct-current stimulation
- 2019:"Electronic implants studied for treatment of drug addiction" In China, doctors are treating addiction with brain implants aimed to stimulate the nucleus accumbens.
