Category: sex

Serious researchers studied how sex is different with marijuana vs alcohol

On By A.P.In alcohol, cannabis, Drugs, marijuana, Michael Moore, sexLeave a comment

By Christopher Ingraham

As acceptance of and usage of marijuana have become more widespread, a whole lot of interesting questions for public health researchers have been raised: How will legal marijuana affect our children? Our jobs? Our relationships?

Or how about our sex lives?

That latter question inspired a research project by Joseph Palamar and his colleagues at New York University. “Since the landscape is changing, and marijuana continues to increase in popularity, research is needed to continue to examine if and how marijuana use may influence risk for unsafe sexual behavior,” they write in the July issue of the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

To that end, Mr. Palamar and his colleagues recruited 24 heterosexual adults to take part in a series of in-depth interviews about prior sexual experiences that happened under the influence of either alcohol or marijuana. This was not meant to be a national sample. Rather, the purpose was to obtain a rigorous qualitative assessment of the different effects of alcohol and marijuana on people’s sexual behaviors and to use this as a jumping-off point for future quantitative research.

Here are a few of the observations the researchers drew from the interviews.

1. Beer goggles are real.

Respondents “overwhelmingly reported that alcohol use was more likely to [negatively] affect the partners they chose,” the study found. Both men and women were fairly likely to say that alcohol had the effect of lowering their standards for whom they slept with, in terms of character and appearance. With marijuana, this seemed to be much less of an issue.

“With weed I know who I’m waking up with. With drinking, you don’t know. Once you start drinking, everybody looks good,” a 34-year-old female said.

Marijuana use also was more associated with sex with people the respondents already knew — girlfriends and boyfriends, for instance. But alcohol “was commonly discussed in terms of having sex with strangers [or someone new],” the study found.

2. Drunk sex often leads to regret. Stoned sex typically doesn’t.

“The most commonly reported feeling after sex on alcohol was regret,” the study found. “Both males and females commonly reported that regret, shame, and embarrassment were associated with alcohol use, but this was rarely reported for marijuana.”

“I want to cook the person something to eat [after sex] when I’m high,” one male respondent said. “When I’m drunk, it’s like, ‘I’m out of here.’ Or get away from me.”

These negative emotions are seen as at least partly due to drunk sex being associated more with strangers.

3. Drunk sex can make you sick. Stoned sex can make you distracted.

“Nausea, dizziness, feeling sick [and vomiting], and blacking out were commonly reported to be associated with alcohol use,” the study found. One male said he accidentally fell asleep during sex while drunk. Another told of multiple instances where sex had to be interrupted because “I’ve had to stop and go hurl.”

There were fewer adverse effects reported with marijuana, and these tended to be more mental. One respondent said that marijuana use lessened his motivation to have sex. Another reported that being high distracted her from the experience.

“You’re so high [on marijuana] … you start thinking sex is weird. ‘What is sex?’ ” a female respondent reported.

4. The pleasure is usually better on marijuana.

The study found that “alcohol tended to numb sensations and marijuana tended to enhance sensations.”

“Alcohol tends to be a lot more numb,” a male respondent said. “Everything is sort of blunted and muted, whereas with marijuana it’s intensified.”

This “numbness” was associated with a longer duration of sex while drunk. But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

It “sometimes lasts too long,” one female respondent said. “Compared to when you’re high — it feels so great and it might be a little shorter.”

The study found that both men and women reported longer and more intense orgasms on marijuana, with one woman reporting hers were “magnified at least by five times.”

Also, marijuana led to “more tender, slow, and compassionate sexual acts, and to involve more sensation and sensuality than alcohol,” the report found.

5. Drunk sex is riskier overall.

“With regard to sexual risk behavior, the majority of participants felt that alcohol was riskier, sexually, than marijuana,” Mr. Palamar and his colleagues found. People typically said they exercised poorer judgment when drunk than when stoned, and were more likely to black out and forget whom they were with, what they were doing or whether they used protection.

Participants generally didn’t note this type of behavior with marijuana and said that while under its effects, they felt more in control overall. “One participant interestingly pointed out that marijuana use decreased his likelihood of engaging in risk behavior because while high he was too paranoid to give in,” the study found.

There were some take-homes viewed as useful from a public health perspective. First, the findings confirm one thing that numerous other studies have shown: Alcohol use seems to be closely associated with high-risk sexual behavior.

Aside from the link with unprotected sex and the corresponding risk of unexpected pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, studies have also drawn disturbing parallels between alcohol use and sexual assault. That link appeared even in the very small sample in Mr. Palamar’s study: One out of the 12 women interviewed reported an instance of sexual assault while under the effects of alcohol.

These negative consequences appear to be less pronounced with marijuana. Research found significantly lower incidences of domestic violence among couples who smoke marijuana, for instance.

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/health/2016/08/08/Serious-researchers-studied-how-sex-is-different-when-you-re-high-vs-when-you-re-drunk/stories/201608080044

Thanks to Michael Moore for bringing this to the It’s Interesting community.

Man reveals the truth of his two year ‘relationship’ with a sex robot

On By A.P.In Robot, sexLeave a comment

David Mills has opened up about his two year ‘relationship’ with a doll.

The 57-year-old has just celebrated his second anniversary with Taffy, his £5000 “RealDoll2”, with silicone skin and steel joints.

He has revealed that some women are turned on by the doll and he’s even shared a threesome with one woman.

The twice-divorced dad says he still dates and gets differing reactions if he tells them about his sex doll and some would “freak out”.

He told Men’s Health: “They’ll be like, ‘Don’t call me anymore, I’m unfriending you on Facebook, stay away from me and my children,’ that sort of thing.

“But I’ve met some women who were into me because of the doll. I’ve had sexual experiences that I never would’ve had without Taffy.”

The American bought the sex robot from a Californian company two years ago and paid an extra £300 for added freckles, to make her more realistic.


The robots come with a £5000 price tag and latets versions will even come with a pulse.

According the website of sex doll suppliers Abyss, Taffy has an “ultra-realistic labia,” “stretchy lips,” and a hinged jaw that “opens and closes very realistically.”

In the first few months, he revealed, he would often come home, see the frozen figure sitting on a chair, and let out a blood-curdling scream.

David recalls one occasion when he brought a woman back to his house after a date, without telling her about his silicone companion.

He added: “I didn’t want my date to walk into the room and suddenly see Taffy, because if you’re not expecting her, she’s kind of terrifying.”

“So I say to this girl, ‘Give me a minute.’ And I run into the bedroom and quickly throw a sheet over Taffy.

“That was a close one.”

David laughs as he recalls one particular act with Taffy which would be impossible with a real woman.

He said: “Sometimes, when I just don’t feel like looking at her, I’ll take out her vagina.
“She stays in the bedroom, and I just walk around with her p***y. Isn’t modern technology wonderful?”

But David is keen to point out that his ownership of a sex robot doesn’t mean he is crazy.

He said: “I wouldn’t exactly call this a relationship.

“I think one of the misconceptions about sex robots is that owners view their dolls as alive, or that my doll is in love with me, or that I sit around and talk to her about whether I should buy Apple stock.


Sex robots are big business in the States and are becoming more advanced all the time.

He also revealed his 20-year-old daughter aware of Taffy’s existence.

“We don’t really talk about it,” he added. “Just like we don’t talk about my television set or washing machine.”

Sex robots have become much more sophisticated in recent years and experts say walking, talking dolls won’t be too far away.

The “RoxxxyGold” robot from True Companion — with a base price, before the extras, of £4,800 — offers options including “a heartbeat and a circulatory system” and the ability to “talk to you about soccer.”

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/1198869/ive-met-some-women-who-were-into-me-because-of-the-doll-man-reveals-the-truth-of-his-two-year-relationship-with-a-sex-robot/

New research suggests that male brains may be wired to prioritize sex over food.

On By A.P.In Human Behavior, sexLeave a comment

According to a new study, the male brain contains two extra cells that can cause men to seek out sex as a priority, even over food. Female brains do not contain these cells.

The research, conducted by scientists at University College London, may have been carried out on tiny transparent worms, but co-author Professor Scott Emmons has insisted the findings offer an insight into human sex habits.

“Though the work is carried out in a small worm, it nevertheless gives us a perspective that helps us appreciate and possibly understand the variety of human sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identification,” he said, according to The Telegraph.

“Although we have not looked in humans, it is plausible that the male human brain has types of neurons that the female brain doesn’t, and vice versa. This may change how the two sexes perceive the world and their behavioural priorities.”

The researchers studied the brains and behaviours of Caenorhabditis elegans – small soil-dwelling worms that grow to 1mm long – to draw their conclusions.

The worm species is made up of two sexes: males and hermaphrodites. Scientists consider the latter “modified females” that do not need to have sex in order to reproduce.

Caenorhabditis elegans are often used in studies relevant to human biology and disease as they contain many of the same genes that humans do.

After recently discovering that the male worms contained two extra brain cells, the researchers wanted to find out what impact this could have on their behaviour.

They conditioned the worms in a controlled environment so that they would associate the appearance of salt with starvation.

Over the course of the experiment, the worms began to move away from the salt.

However, when salt was present at the same time as a potential mate, the male worms risked getting close to the salt in order to advance sexually.

In contrast the hermaphrodite worms continued to move away from the salt.

The study, published in the online journal Nature, concludes that male brains may be genetically wired to prioritise sex over food.

This isn’t the first study to suggest men and women’s brains may be wired differently.

In 2013, a study from the University of Pennsylvania found that men generally have more connections within each hemisphere of the brain, while in women the two halves of the brain are much more interlinked.

The scientists concluded that male brains are mainly configured to co-ordinate perception and action, while women’s are more geared up to integrate “heart and mind” thought processes, linking analytical and intuitive reasoning.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/15/male-brain-prioritise-sex-over-food_n_8300240.html

Antechinus mate until the point of death

On By A.P.In antechinus, Australia, death, sexLeave a comment

The antechinus is a small, shrewlike marsupial indigenous to Australia and New Guinea. These animals are best known for their odd practice of having sex until it kills them, but what else does their mating behavior entail?

There are currently 15 known species of antechinus (animals in the Antechinus genus) living in the forests and woodlands of Australia and New Guinea, five of which were discovered since 2012, said Andrew Baker, a mammal ecologist at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia and leader of the group that made the discoveries.

Generally speaking, antechinus are loners that stick to themselves until the breeding season nears.

Antechinus breed during the Australian winter, when their food — small vertebrates and invertebrates — is scarce. This timing ensures their babies will be born in the spring, when food is bountiful.

Interestingly, males stop producing sperm before the mating season begins.

It’s not clear how sexually mature males and females find mates, but Baker suspects scent, and pheromones, are involved. And as with many other species, males likely roam longer and wider in search of sex, he said.

Baker also suspects that male-male fighting is probably common among antechinuses. “They have surging testosterone levels that tend to make them very aggressive,” Baker said.

Antechinus don’t bother wasting time with wooing mates or engaging in courtship rituals. Instead, they prefer to get down to business immediately.

In fact, a male has no issue with resorting to ambush mating, during which he will catch hold of a female from behind and mate with her while grabbing the scruff of her neck with his forepaws and biting her neck.

It’s not uncommon to find females with tufts of fur around the neck area missing, Baker said, adding that females are fine with the rough ambush as long as they have an opportunity to mate with other males afterward.

Both male and female antechinus are promiscuous, and will try to mate with numerous partners throughout the breeding period. However, to increase their chances of fathering offspring, males will mate with females for as long as possible.

Scientists have documented antechinus copulation events lasting for 10, 12 and even 14 hours. “That’s intermittent thrusting between just one male and one female,” Baker said. When not thrusting, the male will guard the female, keeping her from getting away (and looking for other mates) and other males from getting to her.

Anetchinus will mate continuously for the entire breeding period, which lasts, on average, about two weeks. This activity takes a toll on the male’s body.

The sustained high levels of testosterone stop the production of cortisol from being turned off, allowing males to burn more sugar, Baker said. “It frees them from the need to feed as often, but the downside is that cortisol in sustained levels is poisonous,” he said.

Over time, the males will start to behave erratically, bleed internally, lose fur, develop sores and ulcers that don’t heal, become blind, and develop high parasite loads as their immune system shuts down. “They are like a blank slate for every parasite and disease going around,” Baker said.

It’s rare for a male to survive the breeding period.

Females, on the other hand, may die of exhaustion after weaning their litter, which have multiple paternities. Less than 50 percent of females make it to their second breeding season, and only a very small percentage make it to their third, Baker said.

http://www.livescience.com/51371-animal-sex-antechinus.html

Study Finds Pedophiles’ Brains Wired to Find Children Attractive

On By A.P.In biology, Biology Letters, child abuse, Crime, crime prediction, Human Behavior, James Cantor, Jorge Ponseti, magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, neurologist, Neurology, Neuroscience, neuroscientist, pedophilia, psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, Psychological Science, psychology, Science, sex, sexuality, The Brain, The Future, University of Toronto1 Comment

Pedophiles’ brains are “abnormally tuned” to find young children attractive, according to a new study published this week. The research, led by Jorge Ponseti at Germany’s University of Kiel, means that it may be possible to diagnose pedophiles in the future before they are able to offend.

The findings, published in scientific journal Biology Letters, discovered that pedophiles have the same neurological reaction to images of those they find attractive as those of people with ordinary sexual predilections, but that all the relevant cerebral areas become engaged when they see children, as opposed to fellow adults. The occipital areas, prefrontal cortex, putamen, and nucleus caudatus become engaged whenever a person finds another attractive, but the subject of this desire is inverted for pedophiles.

While studies into the cognitive wiring of sex offenders have long been a source of debate, this latest research offers some fairly conclusive proof that there is a neural pattern behind their behavior.

The paper explains: “The human brain contains networks that are tuned to face processing, and these networks appear to activate different processing streams of the reproductive domain selectively: nurturing processing in the case of child faces and sexual processing in the case of sexually preferred adult faces. This implies that the brain extracts age-related face cues of the preferred sex that inform appropriate response selection in the reproductive domains: nurturing in the case of child faces and mating in the case of adult faces.”

Usually children’s faces elicit feelings of caregiving from both sexes, whereas those of adults provide stimuli in choosing a mate. But among pedophiles, this trend is skewed, with sexual, as opposed to nurturing, emotions burgeoning.

The study analyzed the MRI scans of 56 male participants, a group that included 13 homosexual pedophiles and 11 heterosexual pedophiles, exposing them to “high arousing” images of men, women, boys, and girls. Participants then ranked each photo for attractiveness, leading researchers to their conclusion that the brain network of pedophiles is activated by sexual immaturity.

The critical new finding is that face processing is also tuned to face cues revealing the developmental stage that is sexually preferred,” the paper reads.

Dr. James Cantor, associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine, said he was “delighted” by the study’s results. “I have previously described pedophilia as a ‘cross-wiring’ of sexual and nurturing instincts, and this data neatly verifies that interpretation.”

Cantor has undertaken extensive research into the area, previously finding that pedophiles are more likely to be left-handed, 2.3 cm shorter than the average male, and 10 to 15 IQ points lower than the norm.

He continued: “This [new] study is definitely a step in the right direction, and I hope other researchers repeat this kind of work. There still exist many contradictions among scientists’ observations, especially in identifying exactly which areas of the brain are the most central to pedophilia. Because financial support for these kinds of studies is quite small, these studies have been quite small, permitting them to achieve only incremental progress. Truly definitive studies about what in the brain causes pedophilia, what might detect it, and what might prevent it require much more significant support.”

Ponseti said that he hoped to investigate this area further by examining whether findings could be emulated when images of children’s faces are the sole ones used. This could lead to gauging a person’s predisposition to pedophilia far more simply than any means currently in place. “We could start to look at the onset of pedophilia, which is probably in puberty at about 12 or 14 years [old],” he told The Independent.

While Cantor is correct in citing the less than abundant size of the study, the research is certainly significant in providing scope for future practicable testing that could reduce the number of pedophilic crimes committed. By being able to run these tests and examine a person’s tendency toward being sexually attracted to underage children, rehabilitative care and necessary precautions could be taken to safeguard children and ensure that those at risk of committing a crime of this ilk would not be able to do so.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/23/study-finds-pedophiles-brains-wired-to-find-children-attractive.html#

Retired Porn Star to Become First Adult Actress in Space

On By A.P.In Cape Canaveral, Coco Brown, Dennis Tito, Dr. Lutter, Germany, Jason Koebler, NASA, Pornography, Sally Ride, sex, Space and Time, Space Expedition Corporation, space tourism, Yuri GagarinLeave a comment

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Coco Brown, who hasn’t made an adult film in a decade, has been training for her flight.

By Jason Koebler

Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. Sally Ride was the first woman in space. Dennis Tito was the first tourist in space. And sometime next year, the human race will eclipse another benchmark, with Coco Brown possibly becoming the first porn star in space.

Brown made headlines earlier this year when Space Expedition Corporation, a German company, announced that the retired porn star had signed up to be on one of its first sub-orbital spaceflights in March 2014. Brown, who hasn’t starred in an adult film since 2003, says she’s quit the industry and is entirely focused on her mission.

“Performing in space isn’t something I ever thought about when I was deciding to do this. I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is something really cool.’ I didn’t think ‘I’m going to try to have sex in space or perform in space,'” she says.

Brown says the opportunity arose when she was invited to a “space lunch” in Berlin, but she quickly discovered that the meeting was being held to discuss the possibility of space tourism.

“I thought they were going to be talking about the universe or something with astronomy or whatever, but then they started talking about flights to space,” she says. “I spent four months deciding whether or not I wanted to do this. The company called me a few times and finally I decided to do it.”

Brown has already completed a zero gravity flight and has begun training in Cape Canaveral. She has several more training missions coming up over the next few weeks. Since agreeing to take the trip, which costs $100,000, Brown says she may be in for more than she bargained for.

“I’m not worried about the fact of actually going to space, but when we come back, NASA wants to do a lot of observations and studies and things,” she says. “We’re some of the first people who are going to space without a specific job to do, so they were telling us all these [emergency contingency plans] and things like that, that made me wonder, ‘Why are they telling us this stuff?’ That kind of thing makes me worry.”

A spokesperson with NASA says they have not worked with Brown and have no plans to train her or conduct experiments on her when she returns.

“NASA does not fly space tourists and does not train them. Nor is NASA involved in postflight studies and observations,” the agency says.

Because she hasn’t performed in a decade, Brown says she wasn’t ready for the media blitz that has followed the announcement. Perhaps predictably, a lot of media focus has been put on whether she’ll make the world’s first porno movie filmed in space. That, she says, depends on what type of space suit she’s given. “They’re always giving us a new suit—I assume the one we use to go to space will be different. I haven’t asked about a special suit,” she says.

Despite the attention, she says she’s focused on being the best astronaut she can be.

“I haven’t done a movie since 2003, so when I decided to do this, the thought of performing in space didn’t even cross my mind. I have nothing against performing and would do it if the right offer comes along,” she says. “But now, my job is to train to be an astronaut.”

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/02/14/retired-porn-star-to-become-first-adult-actress-in-space

Thanks to Dr. Lutter for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

Controversial surgical treatment for addiction burns away the brain’s pleasure center

On By A.P.In ablation of the nucleus accumbens, Addiction, Addiction, alcohol, buprenorphine, cannabis, Carl Hart, Center for Studies of Addiction, China, cocaine, Columbia University, David Linden, DBS, Depression, Dr. Casey Halpern, Dr. Charles O’Brien, Dr. John Adler, Dr. Lutter, drug cravings, Drugs, eating, Gambling, Germany, Guodong Gao, happiness, Harriet Washington, heroin, Holocaust, Human Behavior, informed consent, Johns Hopkins University, joy, love, Maddox prize, marijuana, MDMA (Ecstasy), Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, Medicine, methadone, Methamphetamine, Ministry of Health, Nature, Neuropsychiatric Disease, neurosurgeon, neurosurgery, nucleus accumbens, Obsessive Compulsive Disease, opiates, Oxycodone, pleasure center, Proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences, Science, sex, Shi-Min Fang, Stanford University, Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, Tangdu Hospital, The Brain, University of Magdeburg, University of Pennsylvania, Wall Street Journal, widespread fraud in Chinese research, World Neurosurgery, Xi’an2 Comments

 

How far should doctors go in attempting to cure addiction? In China, some physicians are taking the most extreme measures. By destroying parts of the brain’s “pleasure centers” in heroin addicts and alcoholics, these neurosurgeons hope to stop drug cravings. But damaging the brain region involved in addictive desires risks permanently ending the entire spectrum of natural longings and emotions, including the ability to feel joy.

In 2004, the Ministry of Health in China banned this procedure due to lack of data on long term outcomes and growing outrage in Western media over ethical issues about whether the patients were fully aware of the risks.

However, some doctors were allowed to continue to perform it for research purposes—and recently, a Western medical journal even published a new study of the results. In 2007, The Wall Street Journal detailed the practice of a physician who claimed he performed 1000 such procedures to treat mental illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia and epilepsy, after the ban in 2004; the surgery for addiction has also since been done on at least that many people.

The November publication has generated a passionate debate in the scientific community over whether such research should be published or kept outside the pages of reputable scientific journals, where it may find undeserved legitimacy and only encourage further questionable science to flourish.

The latest study is the third published since 2003 in Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, which isn’t the only journal chronicling results from the procedure, which is known as ablation of the nucleus accumbens. In October, the journal World Neurosurgery also published results from the same researchers, who are based at Tangdu Hospital in Xi’an.

The authors, led by Guodong Gao, claim that the surgery is “a feasible method for alleviating psychological dependence on opiate drugs.” At the same time, they report that more than half of the 60 patients had lasting side effects, including memory problems and loss of motivation. Within five years, 53% had relapsed and were addicted again to opiates, leaving 47% drug free.

(MORE: Addicted: Why We Get Hooked)

Conventional treatment only results in significant recovery in about 30-40% of cases, so the procedure apparently improves on that, but experts do not believe that such a small increase in benefit is worth the tremendous risk the surgery poses.  Even the most successful brain surgeries carry risk of infection, disability and death since opening the skull and cutting brain tissue for any reason is both dangerous and unpredictable. And the Chinese researchers report that 21% of the patients they studied experienced memory deficits after the surgery and 18% had “weakened motivation,” including at least one report of lack of sexual desire. The authors claim, however, that “all of these patients reported that their [adverse results] were tolerable.” In addition, 53% of patients had a change in personality, but the authors describe the majority of these changes as “mildness oriented,” presumably meaning that they became more compliant. Around 7%, however, became more impulsive.

The surgery is actually performed while patients are awake in order to minimize the chances of destroying regions necessary for sensation, consciousness or movement.  Surgeons use heat to kill cells in small sections of both sides of the brain’s nucleus accumbens.  That region is saturated with neurons containing dopamine and endogenous opioids, which are involved in pleasure and desire related both to drugs and to ordinary experiences like eating, love and sex.

(MORE: A Drug to End Drug Addiction)

In the U.S. and the U.K., reports the Wall Street Journal, around two dozen stereotactic ablations are performed each year, but only in the most intractable cases of depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder and after extensive review by institutional review boards and intensive discussions with the patient, who must acknowledge the risks. Often, a different brain region is targeted, not the nucleus accumbens. Given the unpredictable and potentially harmful consequences of the procedure, experts are united in their condemnation of using the technique to treat addictions. “To lesion this region that is thought to be involved in all types of motivation and pleasure risks crippling a human being,” says Dr. Charles O’Brien, head of the Center for Studies of Addiction at the University of Pennsylvania.

David Linden, professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins and author of a recent book about the brain’s pleasure systems calls the surgery “horribly misguided.”  He says “This treatment will almost certainly render the subjects unable to feel pleasure from a wide range of experiences, not just drugs of abuse.”

But some neurosurgeons see it differently. Dr. John Adler, professor emeritus of neurosurgery at Stanford University, collaborated with the Chinese researchers on the publication and is listed as a co-author.  While he does not advocate the surgery and did not perform it, he believes it can provide valuable information about how the nucleus accumbens works, and how best to attempt to manipulate it. “I do think it’s worth learning from,” he says. ” As far as I’m concerned, ablation of the nucleus accumbens makes no sense for anyone.  There’s a very high complication rate. [But] reporting it doesn’t mean endorsing it. While we should have legitimate ethical concerns about anything like this, it is a bigger travesty to put our heads in the sand and not be willing to publish it,” he says.

(MORE: Anesthesia Study Opens Window Into Consciousness)

Dr. Casey Halpern, a neurosurgery resident at the University of Pennsylvania makes a similar case. He notes that German surgeons have performed experimental surgery involving placing electrodes in the same region to treat the extreme lack of pleasure and motivation associated with otherwise intractable depression.  “That had a 60% success rate, much better than [drugs like Prozac],” he says. Along with colleagues from the University of Magdeburg in Germany, Halpern has just published a paper in the Proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences calling for careful experimental use of DBS in the nucleus accumbens to treat addictions, which have failed repeatedly to respond to other approaches. The paper cites the Chinese surgery data and notes that addiction itself carries a high mortality risk.

DBS, however, is quite different from ablation.  Although it involves the risk of any brain surgery, the stimulation itself can be turned off if there are negative side effects, while surgical destruction of brain tissue is irreversible. That permanence—along with several other major concerns — has ethicists and addiction researchers calling for a stop to the ablation surgeries, and for journals to refuse to publish related studies.

Harriet Washington, author of Medical Apartheid:  The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, argues that by publishing the results of unethical studies, scientists are condoning the questionable conditions under which the trials are conducted. “When medical journals publish research that violates the profession’sethical guidelines, this serves not only to sanction such abuses, but to encourage them,” she says. “In doing so, this practice encourages a relaxing of moral standards that threatens all patients and subjects, but especially  the medically vulnerable.”

(MORE: Real-Time Video: First Look at a Brain Losing Consciousness Under Anesthesia)

Shi-Min Fang, a Chinese biochemist who became a freelance journalist and recently won the journal Nature‘s Maddox prize for his exposes of widespread fraud in Chinese research, has revealed some of the subpar scientific practices behind research conducted in China, facing death threats and, as the New York Times reported, a beating with a hammer. He agrees that publishing such research only perpetuates the unethical practices. Asked by TIME to comment on the addiction surgery studies, Fang writes that publishing the research, particularly in western journals, “would encourage further unethical research, particularly in China where rewards for publication in international journals are high.”

While he doesn’t have the expertise to comment specifically on the ablation data, he says “the results of clinical research in China are very often fabricated. I suspect that the approvals by Ethics Committee mentioned in these papers were made up to meet publication requirement. I also doubt if the patients were really informed in detail about the nature of the study.” Fang also notes that two of the co-authors of the paper are advertising on the internet in Chinese, offering the surgery at a cost of 35,000 renminbi, about $5,600.  That’s more than the average annual income in China, which is about $5,000.

Given the available evidence, in fact, it’s hard to find a scientific justification for even studying the technique in people at all. Carl Hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University and author of the leading college textbook on psychoactive drugs, says animal studies suggest the approach may ultimately fail as an effective treatment for addiction; a 1984 experiment, for example, showed that destroying the nucleus accumbens in rats does not permanently stop them from taking opioids like heroin and later research found that it similarly doesn’t work for curbing cocaine cravings. Those results alone should discourage further work in humans. “These data are clear,” he says, “If you are going to take this drastic step, you damn well better know all of the animal literature.” [Disclosure:  Hart and I have worked on a book project together].

(MORE: Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2012)

Moreover, in China, where addiction is so demonized that execution has been seen as an appropriate punishment and where the most effective known treatment for heroin addiction— methadone or buprenorphine maintenance— is illegal, it’s highly unlikely that addicted people could give genuinely informed consent for any brain surgery, let alone one that risks losing the ability to feel pleasure. And even if all of the relevant research suggested that ablating the nucleus accumbens prevented animals from seeking drugs, it would be hard to tell from rats or even primates whether the change was due to an overall reduction in motivation and pleasure or to a beneficial reduction in desiring just the drug itself.

There is no question that addiction can be difficult to treat, and in the most severe cases, where patients have suffered decades of relapses and failed all available treatments multiple times, it may make sense to consider treatments that carry significant risks, just as such dangers are accepted in fighting suicidal depression or cancer.  But in the ablation surgery studies, some of the participants were reportedly as young as 19 years old and had only been addicted for three years.  Addiction research strongly suggests that such patients are likely to recover even without treatment, making the risk-benefit ratio clearly unacceptable.

The controversy highlights the tension between the push for innovation and the reality of risk. Rules on informed consent didn’t arise from fears about theoretical abuses:  they were a response to the real scientific horrors of the Holocaust. And ethical considerations become especially important when treating a condition like addiction, which is still seen by many not as an illness but as a moral problem to be solved by punishment.  Scientific innovation is the goal, but at what price?
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/13/controversial-surgery-for-addiction-burns-away-brains-pleasure-center/#ixzz2ExzobWQq

Thanks to Dr. Lutter for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.