[intriguing music] - [Narrator] The human brain is extremely complex.

This three pound organ has 86 billion neurons that form 100 trillion connections to each other.

Talk about mind blowing.

[tones booming] It's been called the most complicated object in the known universe.

- There is still so much that we have yet to understand about the brain.

- [Narrator] Along with being complex, the brain is also powerful.

It controls what we think and feel, how we learn and remember, and the way we move and talk.

Even one small abnormality in the brain can cause a range of symptoms.

That's the case with a disorder called essential tremors.

It's a brain disorder that causes trembling in certain body parts.

Dr. Charles Munyon is the head of functional and restorative neurosurgery at Novant Health.

He specializes in treating essential tremors.

- It seems to me like there were a lot of patients out there who were suffering from disorders that might not be life threatening, but who could have their quality of life dramatically improved if there were safe and effective interventions that somebody was willing to offer them.

- [Narrator] One of those patients is Bruce Bush.

Bush first noticed a tremor in his hand about 15 years ago.

- When I would come back from the coffee bar at work, I needed to open a door to get back into my office, and I found that I was not able to successfully transport the coffee.

[drill buzzing] - [Narrator] The essential tremor made it difficult for Bush to perform routine tasks around the house.

- For quite a while, putting in a screw has been a real job 'cause I have had only one steady hand.

- [Narrator] Bush is from New York, and he first came down to North Carolina in 2021.

He met with Dr. Munyon for a procedure to fix the tremor.

That procedure is called MRI-guided focused ultrasound, or focused ultrasound for short.

It's a form of brain surgery that does not require incision.

Instead, it uses high energy sound waves, but only a handful of hospitals offer the treatment.

- We'll send their sound waves down into the brain.

Where those sound waves meet, they cause enough vibration that it actually translates into heat, and we're, in essence, able to make a very small burn that, in the case of tremor, interrupts a circuit in the brain that's causing dysfunctional activity.

- [Narrator] Bush traveled back to North Carolina to receive a second treatment after he started having tremors in his other hand.

He hopes this time around is as successful as the first.

- The interest here centered on the fact that there was nowhere in between northern Virginia and southern Florida where patients could go for this procedure.

- [Narrator] Dr. Munyon says focused ultrasound does not completely get rid of the tremors, but over 90% of the time, the treatment restores the ability of patients to perform their daily activities.

- When you have a tremor, you spend a lot of time, even subconsciously, planning how to make a motion so that the tremor will not interfere with it.

Based on my experience from last time, I'm expecting that my brain will be more relaxed because I'll be able to do things naturally.

- [Narrator] And that's what happened the second time around for Bush, as his ability to write was restored just minutes after the procedure.

[paper crinkling] - So this was taken on the MRI table before they started the actual procedure.

So after the first sonication, this is the change I saw.

As I was drawing it, I was like, "Look at this!"

- [Narrator] This groundbreaking treatment has positive implications for Bush's future, and it also has other life-changing implications for the future of medicine.

The FDA has approved focused ultrasound to treat seven conditions, including cancer that has spread into the bones, Parkinson's disease, and prostate cancer.

It's also in various stages of testing for more than 160 other medical conditions.

- Functional neurosurgery is still, I think, very underutilized.

There are a lot of patients out there with epilepsy or with movement disorders who could very likely benefit from one of these procedures and who just haven't either found a way to or don't even know that they can sit down and discuss them with a neurosurgeon.

- [Narrator] It's a treatment that is helping make the brain a little easier to understand and changing lives for the better.

- Thank you.

[faintly speaking] - Oh yeah.

[faintly speaking]