In a follow up to yesterday’s post, I watched the Nightline episode in which Carol Poe’s amazing brain surgery to lose weight was profiled. During the surgery, in which she was awake and responsive, a local anesthetic was applied to her skull. Because the skull and brain contain no pain receptors, no other anesthetic was needed and Poe remained alert and engaged for the duration of the surgery.
The neurosurgeons, Dr. Michael Oh and Dr. Donald Whiting, decided to target the brain instead of the stomach to facilitate weight loss. They drilled through both hemispheres of the brain to a depth of about about 10 centimeters, through a pathway of tissue that does not affect other functions, and ended at a point in the hypothalamus, which controls the stomach. A wire was introduced that would eventually carry an electrical impulse, and when activated, the plan was to alter the level of electricity that’s generated by that region naturally, thereby giving Poe the sensation of feeling full.
“During this procedure, when we have the electrode in this target, we will be asking her about stimulation-induced responses, whether she has a feeling of hunger [or] whether she has any memory responses,” Oh explained on Nightline. (more…)
