Overview and History of Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation
How It All Began
The Modern Era
C.E.S. and the Human Brain—Basic Facts
C.E.S.—Helping Depression, Insomnia, and Anxiety
Drugs and Supplements—Not the Answers
How Does C.E.S. Actually Work?
How It All Began
Although Dr. Saul Liss and others discovered how to make modern electrotherapy significantly more effective, it’s important to realize that his work continues a very ancient tradition. Historical reviews of electrotherapy make it clear that using electricity to restore health was already a practice in ancient Greece and Egypt. The electricity had to come from natural sources, of course, and ancient records describe use of an electric catfish, electric eels, an electric ray fish called a black torpedo, and static electricity from rubbing amber—fossilized tree sap that was used both for health care and for jewelry—between the fingers. Electricity itself wasn’t actually defined, described and named until Dr. William Gilbert, an English doctor in the court of Queen Elizabeth, published his research and writings on this mystifying phenomenon in 1600. He derived the word “electricity” from the ancient Greek word for amber.
We can fast forward through the many failed and partially successful attempts to invent electrotherapy machines—which began in the 1700s—and pick up at the point when the evolution in technology finally enabled this goal to become a reality. (And remember not to confuse any of this with electroconvulsive therapy, a powerful and dramatic in-hospital psychiatric treatment that has nothing whatsoever to do with cranial electrotherapy stimulation.)
Return to top
The Modern Era
The first TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) device received a U.S. patent in 1974, rapidly gaining popularity among rehabilitation specialists for treating both chronic and acute pain in a great variety of conditions. Current is usually set at just above the threshold of awareness, somewhere between 10–30 milliamps. A parallel development was the use of micro-current, which—at 1 milliamp or less—is considerably below our awareness. The first rudimentary efforts at cranial stimulation, aimed at treating insomnia, had appeared in France early in the 20th century. The technological progress that grew out of World War II enabled research to begin in earnest. The first steps were taken in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, when the Russians developed low-voltage cranial electrotherapy that they called electrosleep. The International Symposia for Electrotherapeutic Sleep and Electroanesthesia held in Graz, Austria in 1966 and then 1969 gained low-voltage cranial electrotherapy its first significant recognition in Europe and the United States.
When New Jersey bioengineer and electrical engineer Dr. Saul Liss—whose expertise and fascination was the impact of electrical stimulation on the human system—encountered these early cranial electrotherapy stimulators, this emerging micro-current therapy dovetailed perfectly with his interests and strengths. He applied them to developing a micro-current cranial stimulator that resonates as closely as possible with the human brain’s electrophysiology. He produced his prototype Liss Cranial Stimulator in 1975 and began testing it to document the neurochemical changes it produces in brain tissue, and the observable clinical changes that occur in adults and children with various types of neurologically-based dysfunction. A milestone arrived in 1992 when the Liss Cranial Stimulator was patented.
Return to top
C.E.S. and the Human Brain—Basic Facts
Summarizing what Dr. Liss and other scientists and physicians have observed will make a great deal more sense once you understand that the human body—like all living matter—is actually an electrical system.
When you hear about a “nervous impulse” or a “muscle impulse” in the body causing a movement or experience, those common-sense terms are really referring to electrical impulses. The primary difference between the electricity that activates our house lights and air conditioners, and the electricity that activates a group of brain or muscle cells, is what initiates this current. The external electricity we’re all familiar with is created by the organized flow of electrons. Our internal electrical current—which is extremely low voltage—is generated when appropriate stimulation allows ions to move across the membranes of individual cells. This movement of ions is the electrical discharge. And these impulses enable cells to convey signals to cells nearby, and to muscles and glands and organs elsewhere in your body.
We’re so used to hearing terms like
Return to top
C.E.S.—Helping Depression, Insomnia, and Anxiety
To get a meaningful sense of what C.E.S. accomplishes, and its unique value compared to more conventional attempts at restoring psychiatric equilibrium, you have just a little more reading to do. It’s impossible to appreciate the accurate value of C.E.S. without a sketch of the neurochemical imbalance underlying these conditions, and then what drugs and supplements try to do—and why they so frequently fail.
When Our Mood Stabilizers Work, and When They Don’t
The complexities of our functioning and responsiveness rely on a multi-factored system for activating and regulating the great many things that our cells do. So in addition to electrical signals, important aspects of your brain’s activity are regulated by neurotransmitters, compounds that foster specific kinds of communication between nerve cells. Serotonin—one of the main neurotransmitters—maintains positive mood, good sleep, appropriate anxiety levels, and softens or diminishes your experience of pain. The neurotransmitters dopamine, GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), and the endorphins also play roles in these phenomena.
Under normal circumstances, the brain pumps out what we need. But various factors—like poor diet, chronic stress, environmental toxins, diseases involving chronic inflammation (add diabetes, atherosclerosis, heart disease, and cancer to those more well known), the effect of certain drugs—can alter that. Beyond that, some people may normally either not produce enough, or may require higher than normal levels for an adequate effect. Whatever the cause, without enough of these neurotransmitters—especially serotonin—we become vulnerable to depression or insomnia or anxiety, or some combination of these impairing disturbances.
Return to top
Drugs and Supplements—Not the Answers
Drugs and supplements intended to “correct” these imbalances produce far from adequate results. The most recent family of drugs—called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs for short)—try to make up for inadequate serotonin levels by interfering with the brain’s normal processing of serotonin, which keeps it around for a longer time. But the complexity of the human organism means that biochemical pathways typically serve multiple purposes. So disturbing a biochemical pathway to alter one effect all too often disturbs unintended functions as well—which is why drugs tend to produce unwanted side effects. Although SSRIs are helpful to some patients, the more common response combines partial relief with undesirable side effects (like weight gain and plummeting sex drive).
Some patients actually experience powerful side effects that may be even more troubling than their original condition. The most frightening potential side effect—and this goes for all antidepressants, not just SSRIs—is what the FDA warns as the “increased risks of suicidal thinking and behavior, known as suicidality, in young adults ages 18 to 24 during initial treatment (generally the first one to two months).” This warning, just updated May 2, 2007, lists 36 antidepressants from A to Z, including drugs that are so frequently prescribed they’ve become household names (http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/antidepressants/default.htm). The FDA-ordered language for package inserts is significantly broader, actually referring to “children and adolescents,” describes research documenting these risks, and provides strongly worded alerts for tell-tale signs that can appear without warning (http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/antidepressants/PI_template.pdf).
Turning to the gentler solutions recommended in complementary and alternative health care approaches, you’ll find oral supplements meant to increase these needed neurotransmitters. In addition to GABA supplements, there are tryptophan and 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan), the elements your body normally provides for your brain cells to transform into serotonin. And there’s theanine, a green tea extract that, among other things, can increase the release of serotonin and dopamine in your brain. It’s also been observed to lower levels of cortisol, the chronic stress hormone. But here’s the catch—simply adding tryptophan, for example, assumes that your brain cells are sufficiently activated to behave normally, not only manufacturing more serotonin as soon as they sense this extra raw material in their environment but also using it effectively. These supplements are very helpful for some people, but the overwhelming number of patients find them unsatisfactory.
Return to top
C.E.S. Gently Jump-Starts What Nature Intended
The subtle, imperceptible micro-current that cranial electrotherapy stimulation transmits to the brain is able—by a mechanism still being explored—to participate in the brain’s electrical circuitry and stimulate your cells to do what they are designed to do. These cells begin producing serotonin, dopamine, endorphins (and possibly other neurotransmitters as well), which has been confirmed many times over in laboratory studies. In a comprehensive study, Dr. Liss and other scientists have measured the significant increases in serotonin and dopamine, for example, both in the fluid that flows between the brain and spinal cord, and in the blood after a 20-minute C.E.S. session. And they have documented corresponding clinical benefits.
As one example, Dr. Liss and Dr. C. Norman Shealy evaluated the effects of a two-week daily C.E.S. program in a group of patients with long-standing depression that had been completely unresponsive to medications. Before treatment began, their serotonin levels were half those of the normal volunteers used for comparison. After the two weeks, their averaged serotonin levels had almost doubled and now were identical to the normal volunteers. And 50% of these patients had also experienced rapid improvement in their depression. A longer treatment period may well have produced even heftier results.
A significant pooled analysis (called a meta-analysis) of randomized, controlled clinical trials of C.E.S. was conducted by faculty at Harvard’s School of Public Health. These investigators had some probing comments in their published article:
“An important quality of C.E.S. is its potential as a substitute for drug therapy for a number of conditions, such as anxiety, where drugs may have undesirable side effects of addictive potential.”
“Recent experimental work suggests that the collective behavior of cellular networks may recruit and aggregate the very low electrical voltages characteristic of individual cells. (This)...may yield voltage levels comparable to—and therefore responsive to—the low voltage levels used in typical cranial electrostimulation devices. The resulting altered collective electrical properties in the brain’s cellular network may, in turn, influence neurotransmitter activity.”
And most important—their pooled analysis, which covered anxiety, insomnia, headache, and brain dysfunction, “found C.E.S. to be significantly more effective than sham treatment.”
Return to top
How Does C.E.S. Actually Work?
There are theories as to which parts of the brain are directly acted upon, and how, but—just like the mystery that aspirin had presented for a great many years—although we can’t yet explain how C.E.S. works to increase production of these essential neurotransmitters, we can see very clearly that it does work. And the many studies and observational reports—not only with depression, anxiety, and insomnia, but with headache, attention deficit, dyslexia, cerebral dysfunction, and dental anesthesia—document its ability to target symptoms, and do so with no disturbing side effects. The Fisher-Wallace Cranial Stimulator—integrating the three wave lengths most closely duplicating your brain’s own low-voltage electrical impulse—is a unique contribution to this exciting field.
Return to top