Email a Friend
Print Article
House Deleting Memories
Memories, pressed between the pages of a patient's mind.
Last night House centered on making and erasing memories, and how those memories can be a shock to someone's health. Electroconvulsive therapy was the star of the show.
Without totally recapping the episode, a patient was finally diagnosed with a spinal meningioma, a tumor that can grow on the dura, one of the membrane that cover the spinal cord and brain.
The tumor was causing the patient to believe a woman, with whom he was secretly in love, was engaged to be married to his brother. The stress of this unrequited love was so great it induced a string of heart attacks that had to be controlled. Oh, and the brain tumor was troubling as well.
So was his lady friend engaged to his brother? No... and House called it a false memory, a delusional side effect the spinal tumor. And yet, how do you stop someone from believing something that's so vividly real for them that it causes a heart attack at the thought?
An off-label use of ECT, apparently. ECT uses electric currents, administered with electrodes placed on the scalp, to send a current through a brain for about 8 seconds. Side effects can include short and long-term memory loss.
By shocking his brain, House erased the patient's memories of the lady and the love he bore. And his brother. And why he was in the hospital. And probably other things we can't know because the patient forgot them, too.
Dr. Melissa Conrad Stoppler, one of our medical experts here at WebMD, says this use of ECT is a bit creative on House's part, because there is no way to know if the right memories would be gone...if any.
So for House, the cure for a broken heart, delusional or not, is shock therapy. I wonder what he'd prescribe for road rage?
Related Topics: Broken Heart Syndrome
Last night House centered on making and erasing memories, and how those memories can be a shock to someone's health. Electroconvulsive therapy was the star of the show.
Without totally recapping the episode, a patient was finally diagnosed with a spinal meningioma, a tumor that can grow on the dura, one of the membrane that cover the spinal cord and brain.
The tumor was causing the patient to believe a woman, with whom he was secretly in love, was engaged to be married to his brother. The stress of this unrequited love was so great it induced a string of heart attacks that had to be controlled. Oh, and the brain tumor was troubling as well.
So was his lady friend engaged to his brother? No... and House called it a false memory, a delusional side effect the spinal tumor. And yet, how do you stop someone from believing something that's so vividly real for them that it causes a heart attack at the thought?
An off-label use of ECT, apparently. ECT uses electric currents, administered with electrodes placed on the scalp, to send a current through a brain for about 8 seconds. Side effects can include short and long-term memory loss.
By shocking his brain, House erased the patient's memories of the lady and the love he bore. And his brother. And why he was in the hospital. And probably other things we can't know because the patient forgot them, too.
Dr. Melissa Conrad Stoppler, one of our medical experts here at WebMD, says this use of ECT is a bit creative on House's part, because there is no way to know if the right memories would be gone...if any.
"Can ECT affect memory? Absolutely. But can you use ECT to 'obliterate' specific memories? No. ECT can affect memory in different ways. Some people undergoing ECT have a partial loss of memory of events that occurred before treatment began, but most commonly; this involves memory of the weeks or months prior to treatment.
Some people do have problems with recollection of more distant past events, but it is not possible to predict how a given individual will react and what type (if any) of memory deficits will occur as a result of the procedure. The memory problems usually improve within a few weeks to months after the procedure, with return of the majority of the 'lost' memories."
So for House, the cure for a broken heart, delusional or not, is shock therapy. I wonder what he'd prescribe for road rage?
Related Topics: Broken Heart Syndrome
