AHN seeks 2 people for opioid addiction treatment study

PITTSBURGH — Doctors at Allegheny Health Network are looking for candidates to take part in a new study treating severe opioid addiction.

The research underway at AHN uses a well-established technique called deep brain stimulation, or DBS.

DBS has been around since the 1980′s treating movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, and now much more.

“For obesity, some people are starting it for anorexia schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans,” said neurosurgeon Dr. Nestor Tomycz as examples of how DBS is being used currently.

Tomycz is the principal investigator for a pilot study exploring DBS and addiction.

DBS involves stimulating a specific brain region with electrical pulses. Electrodes are implanted in the brain’s addiction and reward center.

“Basically, we’re going to program this deep brain stimulator, which is like a pacemaker device to try to reduce the cravings for opioids,” Tomycz said.

In December, a team at Allegheny General Hospital implanted DBS electrodes in the brain of a 28-year-old man from New York with treatment-resistant opioid addiction. His progress will be followed over the next two years.

Additional patients are now needed for the study.

“We have approval to do two more patients so far. So, once again, this is a small pilot study, we have to show safety and we’re hoping that we get a couple more patients that are candidates and then obviously the next steps will be multi center study across across the country to study more patients,” Tomycz said.

The AHN study has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration

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