Could Ultrasound Help Treat Addiction?

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The Wall Street Journal

Technology

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The future of addiction treatment could be in treating the brain itself. A new trial at West Virginia University’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute is exploring whether using ultrasound waves on parts of the brain associated with addiction could disrupt connections that contribute to cravings. WSJ health reporter Julie Wernau explains how it works and how it could change the science of treating addiction. What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: [email protected] Sign up for the WSJ's free The Future of Everything newsletter. Further reading: Can Zapping the Brain Help Treat Addiction? Ultrasound Isn’t Just for Pregnancy. How It’s Helping Treat the Brain. A Generation of Drug-Addiction Survivors Is Entering Old Age Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What kind of weekend are you in the mood for?
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0:22.1	18 plus subscription required.
0:24.0	Learn more at Disneyplus.com.
0:30.6	For most of his life, Joe Hilton has struggled with addiction and substance abuse,
0:35.9	starting when he was just a kid in West Virginia.
0:38.1	Growing up at an eight-year-old's birthday party, there would be five or six coolers.
0:46.8	Only one of them would have juice boxes and stuff like that, and the rest of them would
0:52.2	be full of beer at 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, I'd sneak a beer.
0:57.7	From beers in the cooler, he moved on to stealing the ends of his dad's joints.
1:01.9	Then to smoking marijuana with a friend.
1:04.4	And eventually to harder drugs.
1:06.6	Once I did heroin, I'm like, that's supposedly the worst drug ever, so why not try everything else?
1:15.5	I like to say my drug of choice was more of anything. It didn't matter.
1:22.9	Joe's 39 now, and he's tried to get sober many times over the years.
1:27.3	He's attended group meetings
1:28.5	run by Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, inpatient programs, sober living homes.
	...

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