Electrostimulation: Addiction Treatment for the Coming Millennium

Abstract

At a period of fundamental review of the health care system, it is timely to re-assess one of medicine's most intractable problems--the treatment of addictions. The apparently insoluble dilemmas posed by the acute and chronic withdrawal syndromes underlie universally high drop-out and relapse rates. In a decade of HIV and AIDS infection, poly-substance addiction, potent street drugs, and ossified treatment strategies, it is urgent that policy formulators investigate seriously a flexible system of non-pharmacological transcranial electrostimulation treatment, based on its record of rapid, safe, and cost-effective detoxification in several countries, as one innovative contribution to the challenges presented by addiction in the 1990s. This is a brief report of the introduction of NeuroElectric Therapy (NET) into Germany, describing the responses of the first 22 cases. The daily progress of a heroin addict and a methadone addict are detailed: both were treated as outpatients for 8 hours daily, for 7 and 10 days respectively.

Modulation of neuropathic-pain-related behaviour by the spinal endocannabinoid/endovanilloid system

“…However, to understand the pharmacological effects of the acute disruption of FAAH activity, potent and selective inhibitors of this enzyme are required. Several FAAH inhibitors have been described, including trifluoromethyl ketones [116], a-keto heterocycles [117], sulphonyl fluorides [118] and fluorophosphonates [119]. Piomelli and co-workers [120] generated a series of carbamate inhibitors of FAAH that were shown to be efficacious in vivo.…”

A randomized, sham-controlled, quintuple-blinded trial to evaluate the NET device as an alternative to medication for promoting opioid abstinence

“…The NeuroElectric Therapy (NET) Device offers a promising non-pharmacological approach for treatment of persons with OUD but has not yet undergone rigorous clinical efficacy evaluation. Similar earlier-generation devices have been studied extensively under open-label, non-controlled conditions, and exclusively in the inpatient setting, as a possible monotherapy for medication-free detoxification from chronic substance use [ [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] ]. In April 2009, the NET Device received CE-mark as a Class IIa medical device.…”