Trend: From brain surgery towards non-invasive brain stimulation therapies

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BRAIN-STIMULATING HELMET MAY HELP PARKINSON’S PATIENTS (Pop­u­lar Science):

“When Michelle Lane was inca­pac­i­tat­ed by Parkin­son’s dis­ease, her best option was brain surgery. Elec­tri­cal leads were sur­gi­cal­ly implant­ed into her skull, and a pace­mak­er-like device installed to deliv­er elec­tri­cal sig­nals to the move­ment region of the brain.

Now researchers from Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty are devel­op­ing a way to achieve the same effect with­out surgery…It uses exter­nal elec­trodes to deliv­er a low-lev­el cur­rent to the motor cor­tex of the brain, and is based on…a non­in­va­sive brain stim­u­la­tion ther­a­py called tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion. In the ther­a­py two spongy elec­trodes are put on the skull and a small, some­times imper­cep­ti­ble cur­rent is sent through them to a tar­get region of the brain.

Since the STIM­band is just a pro­to­type, there will need to be more test­ing to fur­ther ver­i­fy its effi­ca­cy and to rule out any place­bo effect…for those with Parkinson’s it might be very help­ful to use in con­junc­tion with med­ica­tion, since one modal­i­ty would not inter­fere with the other.”

Learn more:

• The Dig­i­tal Rev­o­lu­tion Meets the Human Brain
• Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy: A Ground­break­ing Analy­sis of 10,000+ Patent Fil­ings Trans­form­ing Med­i­cine, Health, Enter­tain­ment and Business