A neurostimulator capable of monitoring the brain’s electrical activity as well as deliver electrical stimulation simultaneously has been developed by UC Berkeley engineers.
Utilizing its closed-loop system, the neurostimulator called Wireless Artifact-Free Neuromodulation Device (WAND) is able to autonomously adjust the parameters of electrical stimulation in real time to effectively prevent tremors and seizures in patients with neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.
“The process of finding the right therapy for a patient is extremely costly and can take years. Significant reduction in both cost and duration can potentially lead to greatly improved outcomes and accessibility,” said UC Berkeley electrical engineer and computer scientist Rikky Muller. “We want to enable the device to figure out what is the best way to stimulate for a given patient to give the best outcomes. And you can only do that by listening and recording the neural signatures.”
Described by the Berkley engineers as “trying to see small ripples in a pond while also splashing your feet”, closed-loop stimulations are difficult to achieve due to the electrical signals from the brain being overwhelmed by the electric stimulation. By developing an integrated circuit able to record the signals of the brain and the electrical stimulation, WAND is able to subtract the two so that it can receive a clean signal from the brain waves.
Designed to run on ultrasound power delivered to it by an external transmitter, WAND also has the capability to record electrical activity from 128 points in the brain, while other current offerings in the field are limited to eight.
“In the future we aim to incorporate learning into our closed-loop platform to build intelligent devices that can figure out how to best treat you, and remove the doctor from having to constantly intervene in this process,” added Muller.
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