Can you imagine that you are a follower of Coldplay and suddenly you are obsessed by the gorgoritos of Bisbal? Well, something like this has happened to a 58-year-old Dutch man with obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety who underwent deep brain stimulation (DBS).
This technique consists of implanting electrodes that emit electrical signals in certain areas of the brain . Thus, as the specialists in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience report , the change in taste was a side effect of the treatment.
The patient – who experienced a marked improvement with respect to the symptoms of his ailments – was not very fond of music, although he had a certain predilection for the Rolling Stones.
And one fine day, six months after the intervention, he heard Johnny Cash's “Ring of fire” on the radio. As another song says, the crush was instantaneous: he fell in love with the mythical American country singer, from whom he bought all his CDs and DVDs.
The funny thing is that the hobby / obsession stopped when the brain stimulation stopped working. Experts attribute this to the fact that the DBS acted on an area called the nucleus accumbens, linked to pleasure and motivation.
What they don't know is why precisely Johnny Cash. Perhaps his imposing deep voice has a magical effect, hitherto unknown, on neurons.
