Washington: Obesity is a global issue with 30 percent of people around the globe are ‘obese’.
Researchers have now come with a brain jerking idea to control those hunger pangs, News18 reports.
Yes you heard it right, by brain jerking we simply mean a brain microchip that could give electric shocks to people whenever they crave food says Stanford University researchers.
The research team has picked up “morbidly obese people” that have agreed to be a part of the five-year long clinical trial wearing the microchip for 18 months at a time, Metro UK reported.
The microchip was originally developed to help the epilepsy patients, called as a responsive neurostimulation system (RNS) programmed to monitor early signs of a seizure to prevent a full epileptic fit by a tiny electrical stimulus.
Now the Scientists at Stanford University in California, United States are hoping that the reprogrammed device will detect brain activity before a person starts binge eating.
With the help of microchip, the scientists will also find out if electric shocks could help people who suffer from “loss-of-control eating.”
The microchip will monitor brain activity for the first six months to identify the pattern of activity leading up to a food binge before starting to give the six participants a mild electric shock each time they think about food.
“These are patients who are essentially dying of their obesity,” Stanford’s Dr Casey Halpern told Medium’s health outlet Elemental stressing it for only this category people.
Participants must have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 45 — a healthy BMI is considered to be between 18.5 and 24.9— and must not have lost weight from gastric bypass surgery or cognitive behavioural therapy.
Previously the chip has already been successfully tested on mice.