Electromagnetically stimulating the brain can help fight cocaine addiction.
To confirm the effectiveness of the technique is a study conducted at the Careggi university hospital in Florence.
Electromagnetic wave therapy, already in use in various centers, generates painless electrical micro-discharges that stimulate the areas of the brain where the centers of addiction are believed to be, tending to restore the physiological functioning of the brain. The validity of the method was studied by the researchers of the Florentine structure and ascertained with respect to the placebo effect, by enrolling a group of patients who underwent an observation period of three months.
"The results of our research published in the international scientific journal Plos One - explains Professor Guido Mannaioni of the University of Florence, one of the authors of the study and director of Careggi Medical Toxicology - confirm, with a rigorous method, the efficacy of the brain stimulation with electromagnetic waves for the treatment of cocaine addiction. The validity of the therapy, already in use in various centers and in the activation phase also in Careggi, has been studied and ascertained with respect to the placebo effect, in the ability to reduce in the short term the need to take the drug ".
"The non-profit experimentation carried out with Careggi funding - continues Mannaioni - was carried out according to the double-blind model with a control group and involved the randomized administration of the therapy to some patients with active devices and to others with neutral emissions, without effects, without the persons and health professionals involved being aware of the operating condition of the instrument ".
The patient group enrolled for the study consisted of 62 people.
"The objective verification of the collected results - concludes Mannaioni - without involuntary suggestions in the experimenters and in the patients, unaware of the actual administration, allowed to verify with significant statistical validity, in the subjects actually subjected to the therapy, an improvement in the ability to resist the addiction, essentially psychological, caused by the use of cocaine. The results were confirmed following an observation period of three months ".
