Unsurprisingly, this kind of open brain surgery carries with it a long list of risks, including brain trauma.Deep electrical brain stimulation, requiring open brain surgery, is currently used to help treat symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease like tremors. Surgeons must cut into the skull to expose the brain and stimulate it directly.
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Stimulating the brain – without major surgeryAssociate Professor Nicholas OpieOne of the treatments for managing Parkinson’s Disease is to use deep electrical brain stimulation to relieve debilitating symptoms like muscle stiffness and tremors.But it’s a daunting procedure. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives 3.0 Australia (CC BY-ND 3.0 AU), so you can republish our articles for free, online or in print.Īll republished articles must be attributed in the following way and contain links to both the site and original article: “This article was first published on Pursuit.
STIMULATING THE BRAIN FREE
We believe in the free flow of information. “I am excited to see our technology enhance the quality of someone’s life” says Dr Opie.
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STIMULATING THE BRAIN TRIAL
While the researchers are planning on conducting a clinical trial early next year to help paralysed people regain movement by enabling them to operate a wheelchair or even an exoskeleton with a Stentrode™ designed to record brain activity, the ultimate goal is to combine this with the ability to stimulate the brain. “And these will vary depending on how the device is being used.” “We have a lot of work to do in fine-tuning the parameters,” says Dr Opie. Their next step is to investigate the parameters for stimulation, to discover the lowest possible current the device requires and make it as safe as possible, before progressing to human trials. The team observed focused muscle movements in response to the device being stimulated, like twitches in the neck, lip and eyes. By delivering current through these electrodes, we were able to stimulate different brain regions and observe different responses.” “The electrodes were positioned along the Stentrode, adjacent to different regions of the brain. “We implanted the device over the motor cortex on the top of the brain, in a small vessel just under the skull,” says Dr Opie. Once in place, it is operated wirelessly. Surgeons use a microwire and a microcatheter to deploy it at the desired location, guided by ‘contrast angiography’ – a special x-ray technique that allows doctors to see inside blood vessels. The Stentrode™ is positioned using a minimally-invasive surgical technique. Picture: Sarah Fisher/University of Melbourne “This means we could, for example, help spinal cord patients use a prosthetic arm by commanding it to grab an item, and then providing feedback on that action so they don’t grab it too hard or too soft.” The Stentrode™ is a tiny device made from a strong but very flexible alloy called nitinol. “We can now target both the motor cortex (responsible for planning, control and execution of movements) and the sensory cortex (which receives feedback about actions) with one device,” says Dr Opie. “Some of the obvious applications include offering an alternative to the deep brain stimulation that is currently used to treat Parkinson’s symptoms, and also as a replacement for some drugs in treating certain kinds of epilepsy.”ĭeep brain stimulation is also used in some instances to treat serious mental illnesses like major depression, and the team are optimistic that Stentrode™ could offer these patients a less invasive alternative too.īecause it has now been shown to manage two-way communication, essentially acting as a feedback loop within the brain, the device also has potential applications for helping people with spinal cord injuries control prosthetic limbs with their brain.