Deep brain stimulation helps severe OCD, but pioneer advises caution

When obsessive-compulsive disorder is of crippling severity and drugs and behavior therapy can't help, there has been for just over a year a thread — or rather a wire — of hope. By inserting a thin electrode deep into the brain, doctors can precisely deliver an electrical current to a cord of the brain's wiring and soften the severity of the symptoms. "Deep brain stimulation" therapy for OCD won Food and Drug Administration approval in 2009 for extreme cases under its humanitarian device exemption.

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