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Read Full BioPatients in China who underwent deep brain stimulation (DBS) as part of clinical trials to treat opioid addiction are reporting uncontrollable compulsive gambling, sexual urges, and other behavioral changes.
Eleven of the 60 patients in the trial had to turn off the brain pacemaker installed by SceneRay, as they described the side effects as “intolerable.” Some patients, however, found it equally difficult to live without the device.
Patient Reports Compulsive Gambling
One patient, using the pseudonym Zhang Dayou, enrolled in the trial after more than a decade of heroin addiction. After the device was activated, he began gambling compulsively, accumulating debts of about 200,000 yuan ($28,000), and was admitted to psychiatric hospitals five times.
Zhang requested that doctors turn off the device, but found the switch back to normal to be overwhelming. In comments reported by Sixth Tone, he stated, “I grabbed the doctor’s hand and fell to the ground. I couldn’t endure it being turned off any more than it being turned on. I begged them to switch it back on. Only then did I feel alive again.”
Zhang attempted to sue SceneRay, but three lawyers declined to take his case, believing it would be difficult to prove a causal link between the device and his behavior.
Similarly, one patient attempted to blame the device when he was arrested for sexual misconduct. The court rejected the claim, finding no definitive medical evidence establishing causation.
DBS Remains Risky Treatment
China has been experimenting with DBS as a way to treat drug addicts since 2019. Researchers in Europe have explored its potential as a treatment for addiction, including reducing sex drive in individuals with a risk for sexual offending. However, one study concluded that, “we must discuss ethical concerns and possible side effects before DBS treatment can be considered.”
The treatment works by stimulating certain regions of the brain, and can be used to suppress thoughts, including sexual desire. Researchers say there is no way to predict how the inhibition of sexual thoughts and urges can affect an individual’s behavior. They said that it has the risk of impairing an individual’s ability to control other urges.
The study in China suggests this can happen in the case of drug addiction, which transfers to compulsive gambling or an inability to control sexual urges. Further research is needed before it can be used as an effective treatment for addiction.
DBS has been used as a treatment for diseases such as Parkinson’s, but other studies have also found that it can increase risk-taking. One study found that “On risky decision-making tasks, DBS patients took more risks than did healthy participants,” but that turning on stimulation could reduce risk-taking.
Medications Also Linked to Compulsive Gambling
The treatment of psychological conditions can often have the side effect of increasing risk-taking behavior in patients. Another study found that a drug commonly used in the US to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression led to problem gambling.
One woman, with no previous history of gambling, became addicted to playing slots after taking the drug cariprazine, marketed as Vraylar in the US.
Just two weeks after discontinuing the use of cariprazine to treat the patient, she reported “improvements in impulse control, stating that she felt more in control of her urges to gamble.”
In the Chinese study, it was not revealed whether turning off the DBS stimulation reduced patients’ gambling problems.
