California musician Brad Carter plays guitar with a finger-picking style. So when Parkinson’s disease caused his fingers to tremble, he gradually lost his touch. Drugs helped for awhile but eventually doctors told Carter he could get a pacemaker implant to stop the tremors. The implant has to be placed on the exact right location of the brain and the only way for doctors to know if they have the right spot is to keep the patient awake under general anesthesia. There are no pain receptors on the brain and so this approach is quite common. In fact, the UCLA Medical Center has performed this kind of operation about 500 times. But this is the first time a patient asked if he could play the guitar during the procedure.
The implant delivers impulses to the brain to control the tremors and Carter used the guitar during the procedure to make sure he could the device was getting implanted on the right location.
what a brilliant story I wonder what tune he was playing.
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