The Chinese happiness chip to deal with psychological well being issues | EUROtoday

Wu Xiaotian He was 15 years previous when he started to see his first demons. To free himself from them he tried meditation, acupuncture, hypnosis and a Buddhist remedy that entails trapping dwell animals after which releasing them. He even underwent electroconvulsive remedy. None of all that labored. The demons continued to torment him inside his head. So, tried suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide of a burnt coal. But he simply fainted. On one other event, she minimize her wrists. But the cuts weren’t deep sufficient.

The demons continued to hang-out Wu till final 12 months, when he entered an working room to have a tool often called “brain pacemaker”, which sends small electrical impulses to electrodes implanted in your head. Suddenly, says Wu, he felt a shot of vitality in his physique, the identical one he had misplaced in his adolescence; Her unhappiness pale.

The affected person underwent a pioneering brain-computer interface surgical procedure in China to deal with melancholy. After six hours of surgical procedure and after waking up from anesthesia, the neurostimulator and implanted electrodes functioned as an emotional swap, reviving Wu's capacity to really feel one thing he had forgotten for the previous 16 years: the sensation of happiness.

“Today, Wu, 31, is a happy man”says a press release printed at first of the 12 months by the Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, the place the intervention was carried out. In current weeks, Chinese media has highlighted Wu's case as a hit in cutting-edge applied sciences that may assist in the rehabilitation of sufferers with mind ailments and accidents, and even develop the processing capability of the human mind sooner or later.

“With the push of a button, your mood can change in a moment from despair to delight. Everything works with an Artificial Intelligence system that looks for patterns in brain activity related to depression and then automatically interrupts them by stimulating target points in the nucleus accumbens, a deep area of ​​the brain known for its role in feelings of pleasure and reward,” explains Dr. Sun Bomin, head of useful neurosurgery at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital.

Wu, in an audiovisual report printed within the Chinese newspaper Sixth Tone, particulars that he controls the implanted gadget with an utility on his cellphone. He additionally has an exterior wi-fi charger with a brilliant inexperienced mild, which he all the time carries, and which makes you’re feeling like Iron Man. He claims that he prompts “work mode” within the morning, which “gives him enough energy” to impress nice curiosity within the issues round him, he has even regained the power to turn out to be sexually aroused.

Before going to mattress, activate “rest mode”. That's when, in response to him, he feels depressed once more and doesn't need to work together with different individuals. Wu is likely one of the 29 sufferers who’ve already undergone this brain-computer interface scientific trial wherein 10 researchers from the Shanghai hospital take part, the place they boast of getting discovered the important thing to manage neuronal exercise and modify moods. .