"Using electrical pulses to stimulate nerve centers deep within the brain https may reduce high blood pressure https that cant 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 https in a yearold man who had developed chronic pain https on the left side of his body following a stroke https Though his pain eventually returned after four months his doctors report that their patients previously uncontrolled blood pressure https 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 ones 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 studies bear the findings out deep brain https stimulation may one day help people with hypertension https whose blood pressure remains uncontrolled on multiple medications https The case study is published in the Jan.  issue of Neurology. While the case study is only an example of the phenomenon occurring in a single person previous reports have observed the same kinds of reductions in blood https pressure in people getting deep brain https stimulation for pain though researchers had believed that the blood https pressure benefit was directly tied to the degree of pain relief the person experienced. What their case report shows is that blood pressure can be reduced in a sustained fashion in a patient with unsuccessful deep brain stimulation for pain says Erlick Pereira MD a neurosurgeon at the University of Oxford. Pereira wrote about blood pressure reductions in a patient getting deep brain stimulation in the January  issue of the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience. I think thats important because it paves the way for potentially studying patients without chronic pain https and offering the treatment sometime in the future to reduce blood pressure he says. Blood Pressure Control The doctors report that their patient immediately following his stroke https had spiking blood pressure that ranged from  to . Normal blood pressure is  or lower. Even after taking a combination of four different hypertension https medications the man was unable to get his blood pressure down and eventually though he regained movement after being partially paralyzed by his stroke https he developed a chronic pain. Doctors tried for three years to control their patients pain without success. So they agreed that he might be a candidate for deep brain stimulation which can sometimes be helpful for people who cant find relief any other way. At first the neurostimulator seemed to help the pain and when doctors measured their patients blood pressure they were surprised to find that it had dropped significantly  to as low as .  They took the patient off all his hypertension https medications and his blood pressure normalized to an average of in the first eight weeks after surgery. Within  weeks his blood pressure had inched back up only slightly to . After four months the pain relief from the electrical stimulation wore off but his blood pressure stayed down. After more than two years with blood pressure still near normal his doctors tested his response by switching the neurostimulator on and off. When the device was off his blood pressure increased by about  points. When it was turned back on his blood pressure dropped by  points. DrugResistant High Blood Pressure According to the National Center for Health Statistics about one in three Americans has high blood pressure. Studies suggest that about one in eight people being treated for hypertension cant get their blood pressure under control even on three or more medications. Uncontrolled high blood pressure can lead to myriad health problems including heart https and kidney failure https eye https damage and blindness strokes and heart attacks https dementia https and erectile dysfunction https When medication fails newer surgical interventions  including renal nerve ablation where nerves in the major arteries https of the kidneys https are zapped and deactivated with radiofrequency energy and carotid baroreceptor stimulation where electrodes stimulate nerves near major arteries that supply blood to the brain  may be options that can help reduce the risks of major complications from very high blood pressure. These treatments are not a panacea Patel says. Onethird of the people who get these interventions are still not helped. With further testing experts think deep brain stimulation could become a third interventional option for patients. Its a procedure with tiny but important risks says Pereira. Those risks include bleeding in the brain https infection and reactions to the surgical anesthesia. Additionally the electrodes may be placed too closely to other brain areas and affect things like speech and movement and the wires may break or malfunction. But if we can follow a group of patients over three years or more and show that the blood pressure reductions are sustained this could become an important third option. Deep Brain Stimulation and Blood Pressure The region of the brain being stimulated in these procedures which is called the periaqueductal gray PAGperiventricular gray PVG region acts like a switchboard for pain signals throughout the body. It also controls the bodys response to stress the fightorflight response. In response to a perceived threat the body prepares for action by increasing the heart rate https and blood pressure. Some researchers think that stimulating the PAGPVG region can help shut down an overactive stress response letting blood pressure and heart rate return to normal levels. In deep brain stimulation electrodes are implanted into areas of the brain. Wires attach the electrodes to small metal electrical impulse generators that are implanted under the skin https on the chest. Deep brain stimulation is FDA approved to treat movement disorders including Parkinsons disease and essential tremor https It is also has an FDA humanitarian device exemption for treatment of dystonia https and severe cases of obsessivecompulsive disorder."