I’m fortunate enough not to suffer with migraines, but I have had a couple of occasions when I’ve had the most unbearable headaches and sensitivity to bright lights, and I can only imagine what it must be like to suffer continuously with migraine headaches.
The hand-held migraine zapper is a gadget which produces short but strong, low-frequency magnetic pulses that suppress the spread of a migraine, though exactly how, isn’t well understood at this time.
The device is a spin-off of neuroscientific studies attempting to identify functions of different parts of the brain. Using the technique of transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS, researchers found that they could map the different parts of the brain that deal with (or are somehow associated with) language, memory, and vision etc. They did this by either stimulating them or suppressing them, applying different TMS signals to different parts of the brain.
For instance when TMS is applied to part of the frontal lobes of the brain, subjects will see a reduction in performance of their short-term memory.
Previously, such information came from patients whose brains had been damaged; after accidents or strokes, for example. Using the TMS technique, the functions of different parts of a healthy brain can be studied and researchers are gradually improving our understanding of this most complex of organs. It’s shown that the device can help migraine suffers, but may also be able to help people suffering from severe depression, mania, post traumatic stress syndrome, and even individuals with tinnitus. The device has yet to achieve FDA approval.
Found via Live Science.