Decreasing the invasiveness of deep brain stimulation

Decreasing the invasiveness of deep brain stimulation: Researchers are developing a preclinical method to stimulate the brain without drilling into the skull by guiding a catheter through the cerebrospinal fluid. Deep brain stimulation—the application of electricity to specific deep brain regions to modulate their function—has been used clinically for over 25 years. This technique is used to monitor and treat neurological conditions, especially movement disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. Yet many of these interfaces are highly invasive, as they require removing part of the skull to implant electrodes in the brain. Finding a way to monitor and stimulate the central nervous system in a less intrusive way has been a holy grail for those in the neuromodulation field. Now, a collaborative team of NIH-funded researchers at Rice University and The University of Texas are developing a method to access and stimulate deep brain regions without drilling into the skull. They engineered a tiny pulse generator that can be implanted in the spine following a lumbar puncture. This pulse generator is connected to a stimulating catheter, which can be guided through the cerebrospinal fluid to the surface of the brain. After preliminary experiments in human cadavers, the team successfully used the device to record and stimulate brain activity in sheep with the aid of a wireless interface. Their work was recently published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.