A YOUNG woman confined to a wheelchair for seven years is not just walking again but singing and dancing in amateur shows, after a “miracle” cure using electrical implants in the brain.

Amy Westall, 20, is the most dramatic example of the experimental treatment developed by doctors to tackle Parkinson’s disease, depression and even paralysis.

The “rewiring” of the brain involves guiding electrodes to areas known to govern specific functions. A small current is delivered from a battery implanted beneath the collar bone and connected by wires to the electrodes in the brain itself.

Westall, from Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, suffered from a genetic form of a condition called dystonia, in which fierce, uncontrollable muscle spasms force victims into painful contortions, making walking impossible.

She underwent a lengthy experimental procedure by Marwan Hariz, professor of functional neurosurgery at the Institute of Neurology in London. Tiny filaments, thinner than a human hair, were implanted in her brain to carry electrical current that would interrupt the signals sending her muscles into spasm. They produced miraculous results.

“It is hard to find words for how much it has changed my life,” said Westall. “I spent seven years of my life in a wheelchair before the operation. Now I’m not only walking, I’m singing and dancing in amateur shows.”

Instead of facing a life of increasing pain, suffering and premature death, she is now working as a volunteer classroom assistant and trying to find ways to make up for all the schooling she missed because of the heavy drug regime needed to control her condition.

“We have a technology here that is sensational and very important,” said Hariz. “It is not new — it has been around for 10 or 15 years for Parkinson’s but it is only now being developed.”

Patients and other doctors have been wary of the technique because of brain surgery’s association with lobotomies, now discredited as crude and dangerous. However, pioneers of brain implants point out that the effect is reversible because the devices can simply be switched off.

They have already produced promising results in operations around the world on patients with migraine headaches and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Hariz and his colleagues now believe depression is likely to be the next major disorder where large numbers of patients could benefit from the technology.

A handful of sufferers in America have already reported substantially improved moods following experiments with implants, and the first British study is under way.

Patients are being identified for a study at Bristol University, where a preliminary group of eight severely depressed individuals in their late twenties and older will undergo surgery this year to implant four electrodes in different areas of their brains.

Consultant psychiatrist Andrea Malizia, who is leading the project, will then investigate which electrodes and which electrical frequencies are the most effective in inhibiting the abnormal signals that cause depression. “Up to 5% of the population suffer from recurrent severe depression,” Malizia said. “This could make a big difference to a large number of them.”

Another project is studying the optimum positioning for electrodes to help sufferers of Parkinson’s disease, which causes loss of muscle control. More than 100 patients a year now receive the £30,000 procedure on the NHS.

One of the first was Mike Robins from Southampton, who began suffering from the condition at 55 and was offered the chance of surgery soon afterwards.

“The tremor was so bad I was considering suicide, I couldn’t do anything,” he said.

Surgeons at the Radcliffe infirmary in Oxford gave him a local anaesthetic and used a hand drill to penetrate his skull.

“I felt quite scared when they passed a spot which made my speech go,” said Robins, who is now 62. “When they got to the right spot the tremor stopped dead and was gone for good. This procedure is amazing.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Margot Fonteyn: In her footsteps
• Forget beautiful people, let's have wonky Brits
• Fundamentalist brew: faith and power