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Medical horror story
Published in Lester D. Friedman, Therese Jones, Routledge Handbook of Health and Media, 2022
But an alternative option is found, and a “new team of doctors” who recommend a less invasive procedure in which a responsive neurostimulation device (RNS), a kind of electrode, is implanted in Sadie’s brain. We see this surgery itself, a sequence that at one time might have been shocking in its visual access to the child’s opened skull, her living interior, but which has become quite familiar and is framed as being quite minor compared to the demonized version that appears to have been avoided. Instead, Sadie’s mother cheerfully reports her child’s sci-fi response to having the surgery: “She thinks it’s cool that she’s, like, a cyborg, because she has a computer chip in her brain” (“Second Opinions” 00:44:15). Unlike a singing competition, though, Diagnosis cannot wholly control its narrative. The format succeeds in finding Sadie an alternative treatment but cannot confirm that the treatment has been a success. That would take too long. Sadie’s doctor reports at the end of the episode that she is doing well but “the road ahead is always a mystery” (“Second Opinions” 00:44:45). The scary not-knowing continues to haunt us.
The RNS System: brain-responsive neurostimulation for the treatment of epilepsy
Published in Expert Review of Medical Devices, 2021
Beata Jarosiewicz, Martha Morrell
The NeuroPace® RNS® System is currently the only brain-responsive neurostimulation device approved by the FDA. Neural activity is recorded from leads placed at one or two seizure foci. Pattern detection settings are used to recognize activity identified by the physician as abnormal, usually epileptiform, activity. The neurostimulator continually senses through the electrodes and, when the specified ECoG patterns are detected, delivers brief pulses of sub-perceptual electrical stimulation to the electrodes selected by the physician.