The evolution of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS): Key Neurotech Patent #23

– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 7,008,370

Today we are shar­ing a 2006 patent assigned to Brain­lab. (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing a foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patent a day, from old­er to new­er by issue date)

U.S. Patent No. 7,008,370: Method and device for tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stimulation.

• Assignee(s): Brain­lab Ag
• Inventor(s): Phillip Tan­ner, Andreas Hartlep, Hen­rik Wist, Ker­stin Wen­dicke, Thomas Weyh
• Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Tran­scra­nial Stimulation
• Issue Date: March 7, 2006

SharpBrains’ Take:

Tran­scra­nial stim­u­la­tion of tar­get­ed regions with auto­mat­ed means requires the auto­mat­ed sys­tem to have knowl­edge of the loca­tion of the patien­t’s tar­get­ed brain region in ref­er­ence to the device induc­ing brain activ­i­ty. The ‘370 patent dis­clos­es a means for know­ing where the stim­u­la­tion device is locat­ed through a mark­er that may be tracked by a track­ing sys­tem. While robot­ic coor­di­nate sys­tems that con­sid­er robot­ic arm lengths and rota­tion­al angles may allow for an alter­na­tive means of auto­mat­ed track­ing, the ‘370 patent cov­ers sub­stan­tial­ly all appli­ca­tions of track­ing of stim­u­la­tion devices (i.e., the induc­tion devices) through com­mon­ly employed stereo­tac­tic sys­tems that require a detectable mark­er for loca­tion feed­back. The broad claim cov­er­age of mark­er-based track­ing as applied to non-inva­sive stim­u­la­tion is a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in mak­ing the ‘370 patent a key non-inva­sive neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent.

Abstract:

The inven­tion relates to a method for stim­u­lat­ing spe­cif­ic areas of a brain using an induc­tion device, com­pris­ing the fol­low­ing steps: record­ing the spa­tial struc­ture of the head, in par­tic­u­lar the brain; gen­er­at­ing a sim­u­la­tion mod­el of the induc­tion device; and arrang­ing the induc­tion device rel­a­tive to the head such that a spe­cif­ic area of the brain deter­mined by means of the sim­u­la­tion mod­el of the induc­tion device is stim­u­lat­ed by a cur­rent flow­ing in the induc­tion device, as well as to a method for stim­u­lat­ing spe­cif­ic areas of a brain using an induc­tion device, com­pris­ing the fol­low­ing steps: record­ing the spa­tial struc­ture of the head, in par­tic­u­lar the brain; gen­er­at­ing a sim­u­la­tion mod­el of the head; and arrang­ing the induc­tion device rel­a­tive to the head such that a spe­cif­ic area of the brain deter­mined by means of the sim­u­la­tion mod­el of the head is stim­u­lat­ed by a cur­rent flow­ing in the induc­tion device, as well as to a device for stim­u­lat­ing spe­cif­ic areas of a brain using an induc­tion device con­nect­ed to a marker.

Illus­tra­tive Claim 1. A device for non-inva­sive­ly stim­u­lat­ing spe­cif­ic areas of a brain with­in a head, said device comprising:

• a non-inva­sive induc­tion device;
• at least one mark­er con­nect­ed to the non-inva­sive induc­tion device, said at least one mark­er being detectable by a track­ing system.

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.