The Pleasure Shock: The Rise of Deep Brain Stimulation and Its Forgotten Inventor

by Lone Frank Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

Overview

The electrifying, forgotten history of Robert Heath's brain pacemaker, investigating the origins and ethics of one of today's most promising medical breakthroughs: deep brain stimulation

The technology invented by psychiatrist Robert G. Heath in the 1950s and '60s has been described as among the most controversial experiments in US history. His work was alleged at the time to be part of MKUltra, the CIA's notorious "mind control" project. His research subjects included incarcerated convicts and gay men who wished to be "cured" of their sexual preference. Yet his cutting-edge research and legacy were quickly buried deep in Tulane University's archives. Investigative science journalist Lone Frank now tells the complete sage of this passionate, determined doctor and his groundbreaking neuroscience.

More than fifty years after Heath's experiments, this very same treatment is becoming mainstream practice in modern psychiatry for everything from schizophrenia, anorexia, and compulsive behavior to depression, Parkinson's, and even substance addiction.

Lone Frank uncovered lost documents and accounts of Heath's trailblazing work. She tracked down surviving colleagues and patients, and she delved into the current support for deep brain stimulation by scientists and patients alike. What has changed? Why do we today unquestioningly embrace this technology as a cure? How do we decide what is a disease of the brain to be cured and what should be allowed to remain unrobed and unprodded? And how do we weigh the decades of criticism against the promise of treatment that could be offered to millions of patients?

Elegantly written and deeply fascinating, The Pleasure Shock weaves together biography, scientific history, and medical ethics. It is an adventure into our ever-shifting views of the mind and the fateful power we wield when we tinker with the self.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 01/22/2018
Science writer Frank (My Beautiful Genome) takes a deep dive into the work of a controversial “pioneer by accident,” psychiatrist Robert G. Heath, whose use of electrode stimulation to the brain’s “pleasure center” to treat schizophrenia and depression in the 1950s and ’60s horrified and fascinated academia, the CIA, and the U.S. Senate. This wide-ranging, thoughtful exploration of Heath’s complicated legacy combs through documents, film footage, and interviews with Heath’s colleagues, his son, and a patient. It begins with the treatment of patient B-19, a gay man who was supposed to be cured with electrodes and a prostitute; when Heath died in 1999, his work was largely judged by that perverse episode: “It seems as if he had a vision of something of which he could not clearly see the contours—quite simply because science had not yet reached far enough and the tools were still primitive.” Though Heath’s work has been discredited, he began an approach that’s getting a new look from psychiatry and industry, making one psychosurgeon’s assessment particularly poignant: “You are a hero until you are not.” Frank has written an excellent, balanced portrait of an inventive psychiatrist with a complicated legacy. Agent: Peter Tallack, the Science Factory. (Mar.)

From the Publisher

Praise for The Pleasure Shock

“[A] wide-ranging, thoughtful exploration…Frank has written an excellent, balanced portrait of an inventive psychiatrist with a complicated legacy.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A thoughtful, always interesting look into the workings of the mind—and the sometimes-surprising implications of how those workings have been revealed.”
–Kirkus Reviews

“Frank has traced and interviewed surviving patients, former collaborators, family members and current DBS scientists. The result is a rarity: a thrilling, well-researched read.” 
–Nature

"Compelling... engaging... an accessible and entertaining description of this relatively unknown chapter in the history of DBS."
–The Lancet

"Nuanced and thoughtful."
–The Washington Free Beacon

“A beautifully written, nuanced compendium that unfurls like an engrossing mystery, filled with colorful characters, gripping drama and mind-blowing scientific history in the making, definitely one of the most mesmerizing nonfiction books with New Orleans roots ever.” 
–New Orleans Living

"The Pleasure Shock is a page-turner full of fascinating characters, high-stakes drama, and profound ethical dilemmas. Lone Frank—a trained neuroscientist and gifted storyteller—illuminates the dark roots of a modern-day medical marvel, and her book should be required reading for anyone interested in our ongoing efforts to tame the human mind by tinkering with the human brain."
–Luke Dittrich, award-winning author of Patient H.M.

"Scientists who are ahead of their time are often odd characters.   Robert Heath is a dramatic example. Lone Frank brings his history and dramatic personality to life. She tells the untold story of his  work on deep brain stimulation as a treatment for mental disorders. Was it pioneering or premature? Her nuanced portrait reveals Heath as a scientist-clinician who is neither monster nor hero, but passionate and persistent. I am astounded that I never knew this story despite decades in psychiatry. Others will be as fascinated as I am."
–Dr. Randolph Nesse, author of Why We Get Sick

“The Pleasure Shock is an illuminating expose on yet another dark, misunderstood time in our medical past. I could not put this book down.”
–Paul Ruggieri MD, author of Confessions of a Surgeon

"The Pleasure Shock is not only a fascinating biography of brain-implant pioneer Robert Heath. It also explores a profound and disturbing question: Can we, and should we, use technology to eradicate suffering and evil?" 
–John Horgan, Director, Center for Science Writings, Stevens Institute of Technology, and author of The End of Science

Kirkus Review

2017-12-24
Science in the service of power can easily be warped and distorted—but, as this book shows, it can sometimes yield unexpected benefits.Robert G. Heath (1915-1999) was once a widely respected, influential psychiatrist at Tulane University. As neurobiologist-turned-science journalist Frank (My Beautiful Genome: Discovering Our Genetic Future, One Quirk at a Time, 2012, etc.) writes, Heath's biologically oriented work found many acolytes, among them a student who lost his academic chair later in life for having "prescribed too many interesting—and illegal—medications" to the university football team. Some of Heath's work was equally troubling on the ethical front. He likely worked with the CIA on mind control experiments. Moreover, as Frank's book opens, we find him attempting "to convert a homosexual man to heterosexual preferences through brain stimulation," having wired electrodes into the patient's brain's "pleasure center" and hired a female prostitute to effect the conversion. Heath's "brain pacemaker," as he called the electrode device, was applied to dozens of other patients suffering from schizophrenia and depression, a seemingly brutal application save that other remedies were more invasive electroshock treatments and lobotomies. It turns out, writes the author, that although Heath is forgotten or discredited today, he was on to something: what is called "deep brain stimulation" is at the forefront of psychological studies today, with uses that include treating PTSD and traumatic brain injury. Arriving at this conclusion took decades of work in neuroscience, including the ability to study MRI scans of neural centers, among them "brain regions involved with our motivation, our experience of fear, our learning abilities and memory, libido, regulation of sleep, appetite"—in short, activities of interest to industry and government as well as science. Heath's work may then have application after all, writes Frank, even if one psychiatric technician allows along the way that "maybe he shouldn't have done that experiment."A thoughtful, always interesting look into the workings of the mind—and the sometimes-surprising implications of how those workings have been revealed.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169495942
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/20/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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Chapter 1
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Excerpted from "The Pleasure Shock"
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Copyright © 2018 Lone Frank.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
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