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in the world. but peek inside all this vertical real estate, and there's a fundamental question. where is everyone? more than 95 million square feet of new york office space currently unoccupied. the equivalent of 30 empire state buildings. >> i think this is an existential moment. you know, i caution the chasm. >> what's the chasm specifically? >> this post-covid world of higher interest rates, the changing nature of how people work and live. we're not going back to where we were. it's a different world, and it's going to be tbulent. most american families know someone who's been af flikted with alzheimer's disease or the scourge of addiction. tonight we will show you research that is being done on both and introduce you to the pioneering neuroscientist who allowed us to follow his startling progress. >> okay, ready. here we go. >> there's always risk.

but you cannot advance and make discoveries without risk. but we need to push forward and take the risk because people with addiction and alzheimer's, it's not going away. it's here. so, why wait 10, 20 years? do it now. i'm lesley stahl? >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm sharon al fonzie. >> i'm cecilia vega. >> i'm norah o'donnell. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and more tonight on "60 minutes." generalized myasthenia gravis made my life a lot harder. but the picture started changing when i started on vyvgart. ♪♪ vyvgart is for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis who are anti-achr antibody positive. in a clinical trial, vyvgart significantly improved most participants' ability to do daily activities when added to their current gmg treatment. ♪♪ most participants taking vyvgart

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looking for signs the u.s. economy can continue to stave off a recession? avert your gaze from commercial real estate. city office buildings are in trouble. for a century, the towers have been propped up by two pillars. one, workers filling the buildings all week, two, money flowing freely in the form of loans to borrow, buy, and build. those days are over. as hybrid work hardens from trend to new normal, interest rates have spiked to historic highs. and now the mortgage comes due. $1.5 trillion in commercial real estate loans expire in the next two years. it's enough to make you rethink the future of cities. we crisscross manhattan talking to players big and small about a sector rocked to its foundations. what is new york city without its skyline? monuments to commerce standing proudly shoulder to shoulder. more office space than any city in the world.

but peek inside all this vertical real estate, and there's a fundamental question. where is everyone? more than 95 million square feet of new york office space currently unoccupied, the equivalent of 30 empire state buildings. >> this building had a lot of law firms. >> reporter: scott reck letter is ceo of rxr, a new york real estate company with more than $20 billion in holdings. we walked through his property on wall street. every other floor, half the building, lies empty. >> i think this is an existential moment. i call caution to chasm. >> what's the chasm specifically? >> this postcovid world of changing nature of the way people live and work. it's a different world and it's going to be turbulent. >> reporter: it already is. the return to office has stalled out. fridays are dead. mondays aren't much busier. as tenants shrink their office footprint, office landlords are

confronting the fact that some of their buildings have become obsolete, if not worthless. ever the pragmatist, wreckler decided to not throw good money after bad and defaulted to his bank on a $250 million loan. >> i can see people saying, that's a lot of money. how did he sleep last night? >> we invest a lot of equity. if it works, we make a lot of money. if it doesn't work, the lender can take over the building. you've got to face redwral. >> the reality is the price of office building is tanking, as much as 40% since the pandemic. uptown at columbia business school, stan van -- a professor of real estate has modelled out the impact of hybrid work on pricing and calls it a train wreck in slow motion. >> this is just the beginning. the reason it's just the beginning is because there's a lot of office tenants that have not had to make an active space decision yet. do i want to renew the space? do i want to vacate? maybe a sign a new lease for half as much space.

this is what tenants have been doing for the last three years. when you take all of those current and future declining of cash flows into account, we end up with a 40% reduction in the value of these offices. >> reporter: consider this office building near penn station, one of a handful of sales in the city last fall. built in 1920 and showing its age, eight empty floors with a 99 cent store. real estate partners tony park and ilhan told us they've been eyeing that building for years and pre-pandemic offered the owner $80 million. they didn't get very far. >> he doesn't answer. >> he didn't answer you? >> he doesn't answer. we didn't have his attention at all. >> what do you think happened? >> the whole building is now empty. >> reporter: in september they got the building for less than half their original offer. and they have plans to convert the place. >> did you ever think of just keeping it as an office building? >> no. >> never.

>> you laugh. >> anything that is not an office. >> anything that is not an office. >> good morning. >> reporter: so much for the prestige hollywood has for decades conferred on manhattan office life. suffice to say, they didn't set "madmen" and "succession" above a 99 cent store. >> it has gotten weird. it has gotten very weird. >> reporter: but you might set an office drama in a place like this, one vanderbilt, part of a crop of so-called trophy buildings. >> to the very, very top -- >> reporter: mark holiday is ceo of s.l. green, new york's biggest office landlord, also the "60 minutes" landlord. he took us to the top of his $3 billion sky skraiper. >> you can probably see halfway to philly. >> from here that's a chip shot. >> reporter: there's a view, but the building is connected underground to grand central terminal, for an easy commute. trophy buildings reflect a flight to quality, corporate

tenants with deep pockets. this one includes two michelin star restaurants. all of it designed to motivate employees to leave their homes. one vanderbilt is 99% occupied. a hedge fund here, a consulting firm there. but when we talked to him in september, holiday was obsessing about occupancy across all of s.l. green's properties. >> we've got work to do to get there. >> your occupancy rates now are 89%. you said ideally 92 would be great. i could see people saying it's two, three points difference. what's the big deal? >> when you have 30 million square feet like we do, every 1% is a big difference. you know, we pride ourselves in keeping our occupancies historically at 95% and above. >> you do accept that work from home is a fundamental shift in how we work and it's here to stay. >> it's one of the biggest societal problems we're facing right now is work from home. i think that it's bad for

business, it's bad for cities, it's bad for people. >> reporter: it's also been bad for his stock price, down 50% since the pandemic. a culture of smooth talk and sharp elbows, commercial real estate is a world built on loans, big ones, and the assumption that those loans will be refinanced with little friction every five to ten years, not any more. >> the bank will look at that building and say, i used to be willing to lend you $80 million against this building. but i don't think that building is worth as much anymore as it used to be. maybe today i'm only willing to lend you $60 million against that same building. and now the office owner has no choice to make. do i come out of pocket for that $20 million difference or do i walk away? >> the rubber meets the road when it comes time to refinance. >> right. and to make matters worse, interest rates are higher. the cost of the mortgage, if you can get one, will be higher. >> reporter: what happens when

that cost becomes too high? >> pursuant to the terms of sale -- >> reporter: on the lawn in front of a manhattan courthouse, we saw something you won't see on a double decker bus tour, a mortgage foreclosure on an office building. here, no one in the crowd is willing to outbid the bank holding the loan on the building. and if the bank rep doesn't look thrilled, it's because he has an empty office building dragging down his balance sheets. professor van newerburg has been meeting with the federal reserve on this point. >> commercial real estate is a huge part of the book of business of your typical bank. i'm talking about the smaller, medium sized, maybe regional banks. that is their bread and butter activity. about 30% of their loans are commercial real estate loans. and here we are, sort of, seeing weakness in office that is something like we have never seen before. and banks need to come to grips with that. >> are you comfortable calling

this a crisis? >> i think we're at the beginning. there is a potential crisis here. >> reporter: in december, nationwide office loan dling win si rates crowded 6.4%. banks have been reluctant to write down those losses. enter david -- from maverick real estate, a firm he and his partner founded after the 2008 financial crisis. their specialty, buying distressed debt on the cheap. he keeps tabs on the debt on every building in the city. he says new york is a wash and billions at risk of not being paid. >> we know there's this buildup of bad debt in the system, but it's not being dealt with just yet. and it's in large part because the banks have been kicking the can down the road as best they can, trying to push this off as far as they can. >> what does that mean? >> it means that banks are entering into extensions on a lot of their bad loans, which

essentially change their classification from a non-performing loan, a loan that's in distress, to a performing loan, a healthy loan, even though they haven't received a paydown on the loan loan continues to drop. >> extend and pretend. >> that's right. and it works really well when interest rates are low because the banks can just keep the status quo going. but once rates are high, it doesn't really work anymore. >> reporter: a downturn in real estate made worse by bad loans, contaminating banks, and potentially the entire economy, echos of the global financial crisis of 2008 are hard to ignore. but whether the trouble with office buildings ends in a simple pricing correction or becomes a systemic crisis, likely there's pain coming, not just for building owners and banks, but for cities themselves. >> in the long run, property taxes on those buildings will also fall by 40%.

and these commercial tax revenues are an important part of the budget for governments, which means police departments, trash collection. and some people are going to decide the quality of life has deteriorated too much and they want out. that's what we've seen. in the last tehree years, our largest cities have lost 10%. we're losing the tax base and the cycle continues. we end up in an urban doom loop. >> reporter: the urban doom loop, sounds scary, and it's ma making the rounds, threatening cities beyond new york. dallas, chicago, to say nothing of san francisco. why not convert empty office buildings to apartments? some developers are. >> we're standing -- >> reporter: tony park and -- are turning the 99 cent store building in 77 units, renting at market price.

developers we talk to say they simply can't turn a profit converting to affordable housing. less than half of new york office space is zoned for conversion. and even then, it's not so easy. we visited this residential conversion near wall street, where developers from van barton group were making an end run around a city rule that says you can't add to existing square footage. >> what is this? >> it's the void. >> they call this the void, a giant 30-story stole they cut through the middle of the building. >> it's one of the tricks of the trade. >> reporter: you take the center section of the office floor, the part that doesn't get a lot of light and air, seal it up, and preserve that square footage so you can apply it somewhere more valuable, say, a pent house. >> residents may not even know it's here. >> they'll never know. >> reporter: maybe not. but the void offers a larger lesson in urban real estate. where there's space, there's potential. >> this would be the tallest commercial building in the

western hemisphere by floor. >> reporter: for scott, that means doubling down, even in hay down market. near grand central, he's lined up financing to build his own trophy building, part office, part hotel. but the reimagining can and should be far more ambitious. a sweeping new deal, combining public and private money and ideas for what to do with old office space. >> it's no longer fit for purpose. we've got to redesign it. more space for communities, more space for artists, maybe picket bawl courts or basketball courts. there's different uses for these buildings, especially when combined with a price. >> he gaves us the term urban doom loop. he also gives off a certain optimism about -- >> human kind has been tied to work where it lives. we were farming the farms and lived on our farms. we were working in the factories and living close to the factories. we no longer have to live where

we work. and that's a very transformational idea. and i believe society is only at the beginning of realizing the full potential of that idea. who wants to live the in a converted office building from the '70s? >> what would this floor have been? >> cubicles. >> at 60overtime.com, sponsored by pfizer. ,... ...a legend,... ...a legacy,... ...a pop star,... ...and a tight end all have in common? they all got this season's updated covid-19 shot to help better protect them against recent variants. got it? ( ♪♪ ) got yours?

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anyone who's had experience with alzheimer's disease knows the agony of watching someone fade away, as it steals memory and in the end, a person's own identity. tonight, we'll show you an experimental way to try and beat back alzheimer's. it's been tested on just a handful of patients but caught our attention because of the doctor involved, dr. ollie, who

60 minutes first met years ago. he developed treatments for parkinson's disease and other brain disorders. over the last year, we followed this master of the mind, as he attempted to delay the progression of alzheimer's disease and its worst symptoms using ultrasound. we saw a cutting edge approach to brain surgery with no cutting. >> if we can, we should not be doing brain surgery. >> you're a brain surgeon. >> i am, but i should be out of a job because brain surgery, it's cutting to skin, opening the skull, it can be barbaric. >> reporter: it looked like a scene from a sci-fi movie. >> just make it a little bit more comfortable. >> reporter: a halo-wrapped patient pushed into a tube, as a team of doctors manipulate his brain from the other side of the glass. >> modulate power in three minutes. okay. we're ready to go. >> reporter: the doctor allowed us to witness his revolutionary attempt to use ultrasound to

slow down the cognitive decline in three patients diagnosed with alzheimer's disease. it's never been done before. >> there's no miracle cure here. it's advancing medicine with calculated risks. >> reporter: they're focused on these red patches in the scans. the gummy protein is believed to play a major role in alzheimer's by disrupting communication between brain cells. >> in people with alzheimer's, it accumulates much faster. and over time, these protein aggregates -- we call them plaques, like plaques in the arteries, they keep on accumulating and impacting function. >> there are two fda approved drugs on the market that can help break up that brain plaque. -- was approved in 2021,

followed by -- last year. both are given intravenously, but they work slowly. >> typically you go into the clinic and you get ann iv and yu have an antibody infusion over one to two hours. and you have to do it once a month or twice a month for 18 months or longer. alzheimer's is not going away. >> reporter: it takes so long because the drugs have a hard time getting through something called the blood brain barrier. this tight filter of cells line the blood vessels to keep toxins from leaking into the brain. but it also prevents almost all of the medication from getting in too. >> we think that's what's causing the disruption. >> reporter: the doctor thought he could solve that problem with ultrasound. the same technology that's been used for 70 years to give doctors a few of organs and fetal development. he chose ultrasound because it easily penetrates the skull and can be focused, like sunlight

through a magnifying glass to help open the blood brain barrier and allow the drugs to rush in. >> this way we're getting the therapeutic pay lood exactly to the area it needs to go with a high penetration. we want to be safe about this. you don't want to deliver too much. don't want to open the blood brain barrier too much. >> if you open it too much, what could happen? >> you can get bleeding in the brain. you can get swelling in the brain. you can get many other problems, so you have to get it just right. >> reporter: we will show you exactly how that worked and the early results in a minute. but to understand why one of the country's most accomplished brain surgeons is betting on ultrasound, you have to go back to 2002 when the doctor first caught our attention in a story reported on treating parkinson's disease. >> show me your teeth. stick your tongue out. very good. >> reporter: he was among the first to implant a pacemaker-type device in the

brain, which stopped uncontrollable movements suffered by parkinson's patients. >> it's like traveling through a labyrinth, as in the greek myth. around every corner, you have a blood thirsty monster that can jump on you. so you want to avoid these areas. >> reporter: the implant surgery is routine for advanced parkinson's. the doctor went on to write hundreds of scientific papers, secure dozens of patents, and present research to congress and the white house. he could have gone to any big city research center. but true to form, he chose to try something different and moved to morgan town, west virginia, where he is the executive director of the rockefeller neuroscience institute. >> it was a fantastic move because we're able to achieve so many things that would have been difficult at other institutions. sometimes in the bigger institutions, you may not be hung hungry as much -- you may have a thousand different agendas and priorities. here we have an agile and nimble

team that can quickly get outcomes. >> reporter: this is video the team took when they were among the first to use ultrasound to treat tremors. for 15 years, dan wall had been suffering from essential tremor, a neurological disorder. >> you okay? you got a hat on now. >> okay. >> all right. very good. >> reporter: the team focused ultrasound into part of the brain called the thalamus to destroy a pinpoint patch of tissue doctors believed was responsible for the tremors. >> 980 elements converging right there. >> reporter: wall was awake during the procedure. after two hours, the 71-year-old's tremor was gone. >> i feel afraid i'm going to drop it. >> you got it. >> i got it. >> you want to show off? >> wow. >> praise the lord. >> reporter: that success helped convince the doctor that focused ultrasound could be adapted to patients with other brain disorders, including alzheimer's

disease. >> if i first symptoms that i noticed were that i was having trouble typing at work. >> did you think you had alzheimer's? >> no, i didn't. >> dan miller is just 61 years old. his wife, kathy, began noticing changes four years ago. >> he kind of hid it pretty well. and then i noticed he was having trouble -- his clothes would be backwards and those kinds of things. >> just little things. >> just little things, yes. >> reporter: a scan of his brain revealed what dan had been hiding. >> mr. miller had very large amounts of beta-amyloid -- >> reporter: the red spots indicated a build up of those beta-amyloid proteins, the so-called brain plaque, a marker of alzheimer's. the doctor explained he couldn't cure him of the disease, but he hoped to slow the progression. >> why take part in a trial if it's not a cure? >> i have to explain to you that i was at the point like in

"dante's inferno" where it says, abandon all hope, enter here. for me, what do i have to lose? >> reporter: here's how it worked. hours before the procedure, miller was given an iv treatment of aducanumab, one of those two new drugs to reduce beta-amyloid plaque. miller was then fitted with this million-dollar helmet, similar to the one the team used to treat tremor patients. it directs nearly 1,000 beams of ultrasound energy at a target the size of a pencil point. >> basically a patient lies on the mri table, and the head goes inside the helmet. and the patient is immobilized with a halo or with a mouth piece because we don't want movements to cause errors in our targeting in the brain. >> is that comfortable? thumbs up. >> reporter: once inside, the mri machine gave the doctor a 3-d view of the plaque he would

target in dan miller's brain. the next step was an iv solution that contained microscopic bubbles. hit with energy, the bubbles pry open the blood brain barrier. >> ready. we can son kate now. there we go. >> the bubbles start vibrating. >> they're moving. >> they're moving. they start expanding so you can open the barrier temporarily. now it's open for 24 to 48 hours. and then it reseals. so, this gives you a tremendous opportunity for 24 to 48 hours, with the barrier being open. so, now therapists can get in inside the brain. >> reporter: that noise is a signal to tell the team the ultrasound is doing its work. >> very nice opening of the blood brain barrier. each dot represents an area where all the waves, all the ultrasound waves, converge and open the blood brain barrier. >> so, this is just one blast,

if you will. >> one blast getting there. >> and you're hitting one point. >> one point, and then it moves to the next one. >> reporter: even though patients were awake, they told us they didn't feel a thing. it all took a couple of hours, and they went home when it was over. the three patients were given the treatments of ultrasound with infusion once a month over six months. >> that's another target right there. >> reporter: the result, beta-amyloid plaque targeted with ultrasound were reduced 50% more than areas treated by infusion alone. >> that's the top of the head right there. >> reporter: the doctor shared the three patients' brain scans with us. >> and the red indicates more density of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain. so, you can see, as you treat with ultrasound -- >> reporter: look closely at the areas outlined in white that were targeted with ultrasound and the drug. >> you get reduction. >> that's af? >> that's after. you can see the plaques are significantly reduced by opening the blood brain barrier.

>> reporter: dan miller and the third patient in the trial had larger areas of their brain targeted with ultrasound. >> and this is his baseline. and then you can see here, after 26 weeks, there's a very dramatic reduction in the beta-amyloid in the areas outlined by this white mark. >> and now we're going to look at patient number three. >> and this patient underwent antibody infusion therapy plus ultrasound. you can see this area, which is really amazing. the ultrasound opened the blood brain barrier, and the antibody opened faster and cleaned out the plaques. >> what was your reaction when you saw this scan? >> my jaw dropped. i was in the clinic seeing patients. and the pet scan technician called and said, there's a big change. i said, how do you know? we have to analyze it? he said, no, you can see it on the screen. >> what do you think when the doctor shared the scans with you? >> it was surreal.

>> you can really see it. you don't have to be a doctor to understand what's going on there. >> absolutely not. >> the red is decreasing. >> that's amazing. >> reporter: kathy miller says she can see it in her husband, too, who slips up once in a while, but hasn't slipped further away. >> he has trouble finding things. i'll send him into the kitchen to get something, and he's like, it's not there. i'm like, yes, it is. i can see it. but he can't see it. but if that's the worst, that's nothing. >> you'll take it? >> i'll take it. >> do you feel hopeful about the future? >> i do, yes. i learned that what i needed to do is accept that the old dan is gone and then start working on the new me, which has a future. >> the doctor's team told us there's been no change in the ability of the three patients to do their daily activities since the ultrasound treatments ended in july.

now that he has showed focused ultrasound can clear beta-amyloid plaque faster, he has fda -- >> what's the result of breaking up all this plaque to the damage that's already been done to the brain? >> we don't know if it's going to reverse the damage to the brain because alzheimer's, the underlying cause is still occurring. we have another study we're looking at with ultrasound. first, clear the plaques. then deliver ultrasound in a different dose to see now if we can reverse it or boost the brain more for people with alzheimer's. >> when we come back, we'll show you the new way to use ultrasound to reset the brain and help people suffering from drug addiction. ( ♪♪ ) ( whale calling ) during its first year, a humpback calf and its mother are almost inseparable.

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billion neurons. that's as many cells as there are stars across the milky way. dr. ali rezai has spent 25 years exploring this frontier of medicine. the surgical techniques and therapies he pioneered are in use around the world. dr. rezai allowed us to see his latest research over the last year at the rockefeller neuroscience institute in morgantown, west virginia. it includes revolutionary treatments for a brain disease suffered by 24 million americans, addiction. the results so far have been life changing for the people we met once trapped by drugs. >> looking back, i didn't have a chance. >> what do you mean you didn't have a chance? >> i couldn't do anything without having that drug in my system. >> reporter: jared buckhalter is the son of a coal miner. at 6'3", he was a high school football standout, dreamed of playing wide receiver at penn

state. but after a shoulder injury, he got hooked on painkillers. >> the very first time that i took that first pill, i knew that i wanted that feeling for the rest of my life. >> what did it feel like? >> it's just pure euphoria. >> reporter: he took us to where he often went to buy drugs, includ including heroin. >> everyone knows to come here. >> reporter: buckhalter still looks like an athlete. it's hard to imagine he was an addict for more than 15 years. he told us he does not remember how many times he overdosed and he couldn't stay clean for more than four days at a time. >> i didn't know where i was going to sleep some nights. my family didn't want me around anymore. i did so many things to hurt them that it was just too much for them to deal with. >> reporter: four years ago, a psychologist who worked with

buckhalter introduced him to dr. ali rezai, who was gearing up to perform a new kind of brain surgery. >> our protocol was people that had failed everything. >> once you tried everything. >> everything. residential programs, multiple fails, detox, multiple times, outpatient, inpatient, multiple overdoses. >> i think he classified it as end-stage drug user. >> you mean end stage makes you think this is the end of your life. >> correct. and hearing that at the age of 34, it was crazy. >> reporter: dr. rezai thought he might be able to adapt technology he helped develop years earlier to treat parkinson's disease to treat people with severe addiction. >> we've been able to map out, with neuroscience imaging, there's a specific part of the brain that is electrically and chemically malfunctioning. >> so, it's not just will power, it's what's happening in the

brain. >> it's a brain disease. it's an electrical and chemical abnormality in the brain that occurs overtime with use of drugs. alcohol, opioids, amphetamines, cocaine. they all are involving the same part of the brain. >> so, your idea was what with the implant? >> parkinson's, we implant that in the movement part of the brain that is electrically malfunctioning, causing shaking. in this case, we're going in the behavioral regulation, anxiety and craving parts of the brain. >> dr. rezai has seen the impact of addiction in his community. the problem is so severe in moore tantown, a vending machine dispenses the overdose antidote, narcan, for free. the national institute on drug abuse agreed. in 2019, the fda gave him a green light to attempt the groundbreaking surgery.

that is jared buckhalter. he agreed to be the first addiction patient in the u.s. to get the implant. dr. rezai's team interviewed him the day before the surgery. >> the best outcome possible would be, you know, just to cut the cravings out and feel a little bit better if, you know, those couple things happen, you know, that's all i could possibly ask for. >> at that time, i was so desperate for a better life, that i was willing to do just about anything. and i signed up to do it. >> i think some people might look at this and think, an electronic implant in the brain sounds a little creepy. >> people maybe 50 years ago, they say an implant in the heart sounds creepy. now it's like normal. 25 years ago, people were saying, what are you doing? you're putting an implant in the brain for parkinson's? now it is routine part of standard of care for advanced

parkinson's. >> this is video from the 7-hour procedure. surgery so new it didn't have a name yet. dr. rezai opened a nickel-sized hole in buckhalter's skull. then he directed a thin wire with four electrodes deep inside. >> jared, are you okay? >> yes, sir. >> all right. >> jared was awake during the surgery. why was that necessary? >> to map the brain. we have tiny microphones the size of a hair we put inside the brain, and they're going with microrobots, very slowly drive into the brain, and we're listening to the neurons talking to each other. in addiction, you want to find the area of the work center. that confirms where we are in the brain. we say, okay, that's the right sound. then we put the final therapeutic pacemaker. >> what does it sound like? >> static electricity, which may be electricity to you, but it's music to my ears.

>> music because dr. rezai says it's a signal that he found the right spot in the brain for the implant. once in place, the wire was connected to a device placed below the collarbone. the electrical pulses it sends to the brain are intended to suppress cravings. buthalter said it was painless. postsurgery, the system is adjusted remotely. >> when they turn the unit on, it was an immediate change. >> what was the change? >> just felt better. you know, just felt like i did prior to ever using drugs but a little bit better. and it was at that point that i knew that i was going to have a legitimate shot at doing well. >> reporter: in all, four patients with severe drug addiction had the implant surgery. one had a minor relapse. another dropped out of the trial completely. but two have been drug-free since their operations,

including jared buckhalter, who's been clean for four years. >> if you hadn't met dr. rezai, if you hadn't gone through this implant, do you think you'd be sitting here talking to me today? >> you may be talking to my parents, you know, those that have lost their loved ones to a drug overdose. but you wouldn't be talking to me. there's no doubt about that. >> beautiful, beautiful. >> reporter: the surgery was a success. but opening someone's skull is always risky. dr. rezai thought he could reach more patients quickly if he used ultrasound. he was already using it to treat other brain disorders and was convinced focused ultrasound could target the same area of the brain as the implant. >> is this brain surgery without a knife? >> it is, indeed. so, this is -- there's no skin cutting. there's no opening the skull. so, it is brain surgery without cutting the skin, indeed.

>> reporter: dr. rezai explained how his team would be the first to treat addicts by aiming hundreds of beams of ultrasound to a precise point deep inside the brain. >> so, the area that we're treating is the reward center in the brain, which is the nucleus cecumbus, which is right down at the base of this dark area. and then we deliver ultrasound waves to that specific part of the brain and we watch how acutely on the table your cravings and your anxiety changes in response to ultrasound. >> how is the ultrasound making a change here? >> ultrasound energy is changing milli or activity in this structure of the brain involving addiction and cravings. >> just resetting them and giving them a fresh start? >> at this point it seems like the brain is being reset or rebooting of the brain, and the cravings are less, are managed.

anxiety is better. so, now that allows them to interact with a therapist. it's very important to know that this is not a cure, but an augmentation of the therapy by reducing the cravings and anxiety that's so overwhelming that the therapist has difficulty working with the patient. >> reporter: last february, we watched dr. rezai use focused ultrasound to treat dave martin, who told us he's been surrounded by friends and family who used drugs his whole life. >> when did you start using drugs? >> when i was seven years old. >> seven? >> yes. i did drugs for 37 years. >> what kind of drugs were you using? >> anything i could get my hands on. >> inside the mri, martin was shown these images of drug use to stoke his cravings. >> his legs were moving a lot, and he's very agitated. >> reporter: simultaneous brain scan allowed dr. rezai and his team to immediately spot the area in the nucleus -- that was most active. >> i would like to see the

target one more time. >> reporter: 90 watts of ultrasound energy were beamed at a target the size of a gum drop. >> ready? >> reporter: within minutes, we noticed martin's foot, that had been anxiously bouncing, was still. and he told the team the same images of drugs were not sparking the need for a fix. >> heroin is going down, meth is down, marijuana is down. >> marijuana is down? >> a lot actually. >> keep on. >> the day of the procedure was the best day of my life. i didn't experience the same effect as, like, the times before. >> you didn't feel like, i need that, i want that. >> no, i didn't feel like i needed, the urge or the desire to use wasn't there anymore. >> so, within 15 to 20 minutes of treatment, the craving and anxiety melts away. and we're seeing this pattern in multiple instances. >> then they can walk away after this?

>> they get off the table and go home. >> and how long does this entire procedure -- >> one hour. >> one hour. >> one hour. >> have you been around people still using drugs? >> yes, yes, unfortunately i have. >> and what happens? >> it didn't even trigger me. i used to used intravenously with needles. it was a little while ago, not too far back, this one individual was trying to hit their self and they couldn't hit. they asked me, can you hit me? >> so, you actually put drugs in this person? >> before when i drew the blood back, it would make me sweat because i couldn't wait. this time, i was just like, god, i hope they don't od and i kill them here. i didn't have any urge or desire or anything. >> reporter: dr. rezai's team told us dave martin did admit to taking one pain killing pill at a party in december.

still, 10 of the 15 patients in the ultrasound clinical trials have remained completely drug free. dr. ollie rezai is trying the same ultrasound therapy on 45 more addiction patients and is already thinking about expanding the use of ultrasound to help people with other brain disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, and obesity. >> this is serious business, research never been done before. we have to learn more. we have to replicate our findings. >> is there any risk at running towards something quickly? >> there's always risk. but you cannot advance and make discoveries without risk. but we need to push forward and take the risk because people with addiction and alzheimer's, it's not going away. it's here. so, why wait 10, 20 years? do it now.

i'm james brown with the scores from the wildcard weekend. c.j. stroud shines as the texans beat the brakes off the browns. the chiefs reign victorious in the fight with the dolphins. and tomorrow on cbs, the steelers and bills kick off at 4:30 eastern. our coverage begins at 3:30. for 24/7 news and highlights going to cbssportshq.com. we could fly south. ney except... we don't migrate. no, i'm talking actually fly... ah. sit back, relax. maybe work on my novel. and i won't forget the little birds out there. actually, yes, i will. wow. money changed you. just keeping it real. do people still say that? switch to progressive, and you could save hundreds. to spend on whatever you dream up.

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the last minute of "60 minutes" is sponsored by united health care, there for what matters. now, an update of our story, "who is ray epps." in april we spoke with the january 6th rioter and his wife in hiding and fearing for their lives. ray epps had become the target of a conspiracy theory. offering no evidence, the conspiracists portrayed epps as an fbi informant sent to incite the rioters. >> did anyone from the federal

government direct you to be here at the peace circle at this time? >> no. >> no one from the fbi? >> no. >> you're old comrades with the oath keepers? >> no. >> reporter: ray epps pleaded guilty to entering a restricted area on the capitol grounds. this past tuesday, he was sentenced to a year's probation and community service for his role in the january 6th attack. i'm bill whitaker. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes." only unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans come with the ucard — one simple member card that opens doors for what matters. what if we need to see a doctor away from home? we got you — with medicare advantage's largest national provider network. only from unitedhealthcare.

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