Russian addicts cured by surgery

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/feb/07/1
The surgeon wanted to make sure that Svetlana, a 19-year-old heroin addict, was still alert, as he gently burrowed a narrow probe into her brain. So he asked her to tell him how she makes bortsch, Russia's beloved beetroot soup.

'First,' Svetlana explained, 'you prepare the meat stock, then fry some carrots, onions and garlic. Then add the beetroot.'

'Good,' he replied, confident that the revolutionary three-hour operation to free Svetlana from heroin addiction was not interfering with her ability to listen, speak and think.

His concern is not surprising, given the radical nature of the treatment - involving the removal of 1.5 cubic millimetres of brain tissue.

'It's a painless and effective method,' said Dr Sviatoslav Medvedev, director of St Petersburg's Institute of the Human Brain, which has overseen more than 100 such operations during the last two years. 'Eighty per cent of our operations have been successful and I don't know of any other method that cures addiction so successfully.

'We give only a local anaesthetic, so that during the operation we can talk to the patient and be sure we're not disturbing any vital functions.' Five weeks later, Svetlana is preparing to return to university to study engineering. The scars on her temples are fading as her hair grows back, and she says she has kicked a three-year heroin habit.

Beneath his office window lies a statue of 'Pavlov's Dog', the Russian husky conditioned to salivate at the sound of ringing bells rather than at the sight of the food they usually preceded. Ivan Pavlov won a Nobel Prize in 1904 for his pioneering analysis of conditional reflexes. 'I think the West is too cautious about neurosurgery because of the obsession with human rights and its association with the use of electric shock treatment,' he said. 'It is a pity because it cuts off a lot of possibilities.'

A big demand for surgery is not expected immediately from Western heroin addicts. 'You know the economic and political situation in Russia. Can you imagine someone in the West wanting to come to Russia to have two holes drilled in his head?' says Medvedev. His surgeons realised the potential of brain surgery on addicts after routine operations on patients with 'pains' in amputated limbs.

'This started 30 years ago with the treatment of phantom pains. Many of our patients were also drug addicts because they had used morphine regularly to kill the pain. Then we noticed that after brain surgery, they were no longer addicted.'

'Addiction is a kind of obsession,' said Medvedev. 'There's a kind of circle in the brain which has to be cut. That's our task.

- What are you doing now?
- We are working on a very interesting thing - we determine which parts
the brain are responsible for what. In the process of working with
test subjects, we found that these regions in all people have a
similar localization. This will allow us to understand in which areas
can be invaded in the treatment, and in which it is impossible,
otherwise a person will stop moving or lose speech.
- Dr. Sviatoslav Medvedev explains the essence of experiments on the human brain
http://www.aif.ru/archive/1672003
Святослав МЕДВЕДЕВ: "Я стал шарахаться от женщин"

Further observations of several patients showed a steady decrease
in emotional functions. The destruction of the relevant parts of the
limbic system not only eliminated the obsessive-compulsive syndrome,
but also led to progressive emotional disorders that were expressed in
reducing the ability of patients to experience positive emotions.
The consequence was uncontrollable depressive disorders,
which often led to suicides.
- aftermath of Dr. Sviatoslav Medvedev's treatment
http://rehab-centers.ru/lechenie-narkomanii-hirurgicheskim-putem/