Electrical brain stimulation rouses people from deep coma sometimes and is bound to wreak havoc with ethics and braindead determinations. Terri Schiavo was nothing.

For someone left for dead 12 years ago, Candice Ivey seems to be doing pretty well. She’s still got her homecoming queen looks and A-student smarts. She has earned a college degree and holds a job as a recreational therapist in a retirement community. She has, however, lost her ballerina grace and now walks a bit like her feet are asleep. She slurs her words a little, too, which sometimes leads to trouble. “One time I got pulled over. The cop looked at me and said, ‘What have you been drinking?’ I said, ‘Nothing.’ He said, ‘Get out here and walk the line.’ I was staggering all over the place. He said, ‘All right, blow into this.’ Of course I blew a 0, and he had to let me go.”

2008-09-15: Wireheads

Soon after insertion of the nVPL electrode, the patient noted that stimulation also produced erotic sensations. This pleasurable response was heightened by continuous stimulation at 75% maximal amplitude, frequently augmented by short bursts at maximal amplitude. Though sexual arousal was prominent, no orgasm occurred with these brief increases in stimulation intensity. Despite several episodes of paroxysmal atrial tachycardia and development of adverse behavioral and neurological symptoms during maximal stimulation, compulsive use of the stimulator developed. At its most frequent, the patient self-stimulated throughout the day, neglecting personal hygiene and family commitments. A chronic ulceration developed at the tip of the finger used to adjust the amplitude dial and she frequently tampered with the device in an effort to increase the stimulation amplitude.

2013-06-25: Consider: brain computer interfaces. Without this, this poor guy would have a pretty miserable life.

2015-06-14: Neurophilic implants

But with our injectable electronics, it’s as if it’s not there at all. They are 1m times more flexible than any state-of-the-art flexible electronics and have subcellular feature sizes. They’re what I call ‘neurophilic’ — they actually like to interact with neurons.

2015-11-09: Self-experimentation

Last year, Kennedy, a 67-year-old neurologist and inventor, did something unprecedented in the annals of self-experimentation. He paid a surgeon in Central America $25K to implant electrodes into his brain in order to establish a connection between his motor cortex and a computer.

2016-05-14: Brainjacking

A group of neurosurgeons round up a set of dire, terrifying warnings about the way that neural implants are vulnerable to networked attacks. Most of the article turns on deep brain stimulation devices, which can be used to stimulate or suppress activity in different parts of the brain, already used to treat some forms of mental illness, chronic pain and other disorders. The researchers round up a whole dystopia’s worth of potential attacks on these implants, including tampering with the victim’s reward system “to exert substantial control over a patient’s behavior”; pain attacks that induce “severe pain in these patients”; and attacks on impulse control that could induce “Mania, hypersexuality, and pathological gambling.”

2021-07-06: Perhaps everyone could lead better lives with a bit of DBS.

Why is Deep Brain Stimulation so transformative – not just eliminating OCD symptoms, but increasing self-confidence and openness to the world? And how can we make sense of self-confidence in the context of electrically induced changes in the brain? It could be that changes in the brain and an increase in self-confidence are both needed to set the sick person right. Understanding the effects of DBS on the brain might therefore be only a part of the explanation of how DBS changes the person.

It is the whole person who responds to DBS, and not only the parts of their brain where the electrodes are implanted. DBS changes many aspects of how a person engages with the world. Their social interactions, tendency to reflect and ruminate, mood, interests and, more generally, their self-confidence in life. Even for those without a pathology, the experience of over- and under-confidence can be common throughout life. Think of going into an interview where your dream job is at stake. In this kind of situation, many might experience a lack of self-confidence. Overconfidence on the job, on the other hand, can lead to precipitous calculations and risks. Too much self-confidence can tip over into impulsive acts that appear pathological; too little self-confidence can lead to anxiety and lack of trust in oneself and the world.