Implanted stimulators can work wonders for some neurodegenerative disease patients, but how to power them?
The implantable deep brain stimulator is a great little box of tricks that can help patients with neurological or psychiatric conditions when traditional treatments just aren’t cutting it.
They can help those with Parkinson’s gain better control of their movements as well as reduce some of the symptoms of neurological conditions.
In fact, around 150,000 new ones are being implanted every year.
Stimulators are typically placed in the chest area, under the skin, while their electrodes are implanted in the brain. The downside is that a stimulator needs a fair bit of power, so the battery needs changing every two to three years, requiring surgery.
However, a team led by chemists from the University of Connecticut may have figured out a way to power a stimulator without ever having to change the battery. Their research was published recently in Cell Reports Physical Science.
Presumably having ruled out attaching a solar panel to the head, the team decided to test a device that relies on the movement of a pig lung. They embedded a nanogenerator in the chest of an artificial pig then hooked the faux swine up to a pump so they could inflate and deflate it to simulate breathing.
The movement of the porcine lung pushed two layers of the nanogenerator together and the rubbing motion produced electricity.
At this point we should clarify that the intention is eventually to use the patient’s own lung movements to power the device, not to implant a pig lung into a human.
Flushed with this source of sustainable biomechanical power, the researchers used it to zap some mouse hippocampus tissues and observed the neural activity generated. The results appear promising.
“This is the first system that combines all the pieces; efficient energy harvesting, energy storage and the controlled brain stimulator,” said Dr Islam Mosa, one of the architects of the porcine plan.
“We demonstrated that our self-sustainable deep brain stimulator can intermittently stimulate the brain tissue by alternating periods of stimulation and periods of no stimulation which is an effective deep brain stimulation approach for treating psychiatric conditions.”
If something stimulates your brain, send it to penny@medicalrepublic.com.au.
