Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: Extraordinary Journeys into the Human Brain

by Allan H. Ropper

At that time, neurosurgeons in Europe were experimenting with an extension of the Cooper procedure in which, instead of merely making a hole in the thalamus or globus pallidus, they placed an electrode at the site, and ran wires from the electrode through the skull to a small stimulator, essentially a pacemaker, implanted under the collar bone. It was called deep brain stimulation, or DBS. At that time, the technique and the equipment were primitive by today’s standards, and not yet approved by the FDA. The procedure offered little in the way of customization, and Michael was adamant that he did not want wires coming out of his head. But he was still a good candidate for the old Cooper procedure—the lesion without the implant—and this made sense given his unique needs and the time frame. He was still dealing mostly with tremor, something a thalamotomy could handle very well.