Informed consent in the psychiatric application of deep brain stimulation technology

Deep brain stimulation offers a promising new therapeutic option for individuals with treatment resistant psychiatric illness. Prior to surgery, patients and their surgeons discuss the procedure in a practice known as informed consent. During this discussion, patients are educated about how the surgery will be performed, the possible risks of an adverse event, and the likelihood of a therapeutic benefit. However, while these elements of discussion are appropriate and sufficient for traditional surgeries of the body, they are likely inadequate for surgeries of the mind because they fail to establish a definition of “mind” for the patient and treatment team. This paper seeks to demonstrate some of the issues that might arise when the term “mind” is not adequately defined prior to deep brain stimulation and proposes a framework definition of “mind” to help facilitate addressing this topic during informed consent.