WebMD Medical News Laura J. Martin, MD Jan. 24, 2011 -- Using
electrical pulses to stimulate nerve centers deep within the
brain may reduce high blood pressure that can’t be controlled
with medication, a case report shows. Doctors in the U.K. made
the discovery after implanting a device that works as an
electric stimulator of a region of the brain in a 55-year-old
man who had developed chronic pain on the left side of his body
following a stroke. Though his pain eventually returned after
four months, his doctors report that their patient’s previously
uncontrolled blood pressure has remained normal for nearly three
years. That was a surprise because experts had long thought that
pain had to be reduced to see a reduction in blood pressure.
“Pain creates stress and that can have an effect on one’s blood
pressure,” says Nikunj J. Patel, MD, a neurosurgeon at Frenchay
Hospital in Bristol, U.K., and an author of the case study.
Patel says that makes the impact of the case study “startling
and exciting” because if s