On June 4, our class travelled to the medical school to tour the Musée d’Histoire de la Medicine. They have on display a series of medical advancements and tools, ranging from the first prosthetics to horrifying instruments used to remove kidney stones, all the way to a small decorative coffee table made completely out of human parts. One of the larger spectacles was the electroshock therapy. In the 19thcentury, this machine, used to deliver a light shock to the patient, was thought to cure depression or insanity. While this contraption looks archaic, the use of electrical impulses to modulate brain activity remains prevalent today. Treatments range from deep brain stimulation for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease to home transcranial direct current stimulation thought to improve a range of cognitive functions (Wexler & Hamilton, 2017). There is evidence of behavioral changes, although questions of the underlying biolgical mechanisms remain undetermined.
Works Cited:
Wexler, Anna & Hamilton, Roy H. (2017). Crowdsourced tDCS Research: Feasible or Fanciful?AJOB Neuroscience, 8(1), 50-53.