Soon we will be able to log (hack?) into consciousness.via: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Banjo used in brain surgeryA musician who underwent brain surgery to treat a hand tremor played his banjo throughout to test the success of the procedure.Eddie Adcock is one of the pillars of Bluegrass Music and realised his tremor could threaten his ability to perform professionally.Surgeons placed electrodes in Mr Adcock’s brain and fitted a pace maker in his chest which delivers a small current which shuts down the region of his brain causing the tremors.A surgeon filmed the operation at the Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.via Neurophilosophy : Brain surgery with a banjoThe film shows neurosurgeons at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee treating Adcock with deep brain stimulation (DBS), in which electrodes are implanted into the thalamus. Together with the cerebellum and cerebral cortex, the thalamus forms a circuit that controls movement.DBS is still an experimental procedure, but it has been used successfully as a treatment for essential tremor since 1997, and for Parkinson’s Disease, which has similar but far more severe symptoms, since 2002.In this case, the surgeons used the banjo to fine tune the treatment. Because of his tremors, Adcock no longer had the dexterity required for his characteristic fast picking style. He played the instrument during his operation so that the surgeons could pinpoint exactly where the electrodes would most effective.Posted in Brain, Medicine Tagged: Brain surgery