Facilitating clinical treatments via Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): Key Neurotechnology Patent #21

by

magnetic stimulation
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 6,926,660

Today we are shar­ing a key 2005 patent assigned to Neu­ro­net­ics, Inc. (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing a foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patent a day, from old­er to new­er by issue date)

U.S. Patent No. 6,926,660: Facil­i­tat­ing treat­ment via mag­net­ic stimulation.

  • Assignee(s): Neu­ro­net­ics, Inc.
  • Inventor(s): Stan­ford W. Miller
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Tran­scra­nial Stimulation
  • Issue Date: August 9, 2005

SharpBrains’ Take:

TMS treat­ments pro­ce­dures are more effec­tive and effi­cient if tar­get­ed stim­u­la­tion to the patient can be quick­ly and eas­i­ly repeat­ed, rather than blind­ly hunt­ing for the cor­rect loca­tion and ori­en­ta­tion after ini­tial dosing/ test­ing pro­ce­dures con­duct­ed to deter­mine the appro­pri­ate stim­u­la­tion field strength and loca­tion. The ‘660 patent dis­clos­es tech­niques that replace pre­vi­ous tech­niques for re-posi­tion­ing patients with stim­u­la­tion devices by using a mech­a­nism that con­sid­ers and adjusts to the patien­t’s head con­tours and the treat­ment device. The fixed, wear­able nature of the appa­ra­tus described in the ‘660 patent pro­vides a rel­a­tive­ly low cost stim­u­la­tion align­ment and ori­en­ta­tion sys­tem (com­pared to oth­er stim­u­la­tion tech­niques that, for exam­ple, may involve expen­sive robot­ics). The impor­tance of pre­ci­sion and tar­get­ed treat­ment in stim­u­la­tion treat­ment pro­ce­dures, the poten­tial­ly low cost alter­na­tive to oth­er tar­get­ed stim­u­la­tion approach­es and the broad­ly claimed inven­tive con­cept are among the con­tribut­ing fac­tors that make the ‘660 patent a key non-inva­sive neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent.

Abstract:

The inven­tion pro­vides a device, sys­tem and method for plac­ing a treat­ment com­po­nent on a patien­t’s head. The inven­tive device includes an attach­ment frame that attach­es the treat­ment com­po­nent to the patien­t’s head. The attach­ment frame also includes a win­dow. A receiv­ing mech­a­nism holds the treat­ment com­po­nent to the attach­ment frame, and an align­ment struc­ture per­mits the treat­ment com­po­nent to be posi­tioned at a desired loca­tion on the patien­t’s head. The inven­tive device also may include an iso­la­tor com­po­nent capa­ble of reduc­ing sound to the patien­t’s ears and/or reduc­ing vibra­tion of the attach­ment frame. The inven­tive may also include an elec­tri­cal con­nec­tor to send and receive data based on the treat­ment, and an adjust­ment struc­ture that is capa­ble of adjust­ing the device to each patient.

Illus­tra­tive Claim 22. A method of plac­ing a treat­ment device on a patient, comprising:

  • plac­ing a head-frame com­po­nent on the patien­t’s head;
  • align­ing the head-frame com­po­nent to the patien­t’s head;
  • secur­ing the head-frame com­po­nent to the patient;
  • attach­ing a treat­ment device to the head-frame com­po­nent; and
  • adjust­ing the device to the con­tours of an indi­vid­ual patien­t’s head.

To learn more about mar­ket data, trends and lead­ing com­pa­nies in the dig­i­tal brain health space –dig­i­tal plat­forms for brain/ cog­ni­tive assess­ment, mon­i­tor­ing and enhance­ment– check out this mar­ket report. To learn more about our analy­sis of 10,000+ patent fil­ings, check out this IP & inno­va­tion neu­rotech report.