NeuroElectric Therapy

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NeuroElectric Therapy (NET) is a form of Cranial Electro-Stimulation (CES) that uses low-current electrical impulses across the head to relieve the symptoms of acute and chronic withdrawal from drugs.

In the late 1970s, a Scottish surgeon, Dr. Meg Patterson (MBE, MBChB, FRCS Edinburgh), reported that by applying small, precisely structured electrical waveforms to chemically dependent people, she could stimulate the human body to rapidly accelerate its rate of detoxification. Research during the 1980s in the UK and USSR demonstrated NET's ability to modulate the dopaminergic and seratonergic systems.

Clinical results published in 1984 showed that by coupling NeuroElectric Therapy with approximately two weeks of a residential rehabilitation program, participants exhibited a dropout rate of less than 2% and experienced long-term drug abstinence rates of approximately 80%, based upon a follow-up study that determined the sampled participants’ abstinence status anywhere from 1 - 8 years after their initial treatment (n=186).

The BBC aired a 30-minute documentary (Final Fix) on NET in 2007, and several UK newspapers published accounts of NET pilots in Scotland. A local media station, WKYT, aired two segments on similar NET pilots running in Kentucky, USA. Clinical trials are reported to be starting in Scotland in the summer of 2008.