A man developed a passionate love for the music of Johnny Cash after being implanted with a brain stimulation device. The unique story is told in a case report in the Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience journal, published on the 6th May.
The authors, Mariska Mantione and colleagues, describe the case of "Mr. B", a 58 year old Dutch man who had suffered from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety since the age of 13. Numerous medications and psychotherapy had failed to provide relief. So Mr B. was given deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a last resort treatment. The electrodes were placed in the nucleus accumbens. It worked: his OCD and anxiety symptoms went down, down, down, so much so that he felt like his spirit was finally unchained:
Mr. B. reported he felt very confident, calm and assertive and he started to call himself “Mr. B. II”, the new and ...
