Word: thalamus
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...head. Dr. Cooper then makes an incision and bores a hole in the patient's skull. He places a bow-shaped instrument of his own design around the patient's head, and using the instrument as a guide, carefully threads a long cannula (tube) toward the thalamus at the center of the brain...
...first approach, back in 1952, was to sever an artery supplying the nerve-cell complex. Though many patients got relief, several died, and an equal number were left worse off than before their operation. Next he tried injecting absolute alcohol into part of the brain near the thalamus. Then Dr. Cooper put the alcohol into the thalamus, as in Photographer Bourke-White's case...
...battery of X-ray machines. Using a local anesthetic, he saws out a dime-sized piece of the skull, then inserts a three-in-one tube, only 2 mm. (less than 1½ in.) in diameter. The tube slips painlessly through the insensitive brain to the deep-lying thalamus. The tube's outer layer is a vacuum insulator; the innermost bore carries liquid nitrogen supplied at -196° C.; the middle layer is for warmed and gaseous nitrogen to escape...
When the X rays show that the tip of the tube is in the thalamus, Dr. Cooper lets in enough liquid nitrogen to drop the tip temperature to zero or -10° C. This knocks out the nerves, but does not destroy them. He asks the patient to raise an arm, or leg, or both: if the patient has full control of his limbs, with no tremor remaining, the tip is in the right place...
...less than five minutes, this rapid freezing kills the offending, misfiring nerve cells. If the freezing extends a bit too far and the patient becomes unable to move his arm satisfactorily, Dr. Cooper has 30 seconds in which to correct the error and rewarm the thalamus. Most patients can be out of bed the same day and out of the hospital within a week...