The leading-edge in brain stimulation and neuromodulation: Key Neurotech Patent #36

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brain stimulation device
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 7,711,431

Today we dis­cuss a key brain stim­u­la­tion patent by Brain­lab AG.

U.S. Patent No. 7,711,431: Method and device for stim­u­lat­ing the brain

  • Assignee(s): Brain­lab AG
  • Inventor(s): Philip Tan­ner, Thomas Bauch
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Tran­scra­nial Stimulation
  • Issue Date: May 4, 2010

SharpBrains’ Take:

One of the fun­da­men­tal para­me­ters that must be deter­mined dur­ing brain stim­u­la­tion treat­ment is the quan­ti­ty or amount of ener­gy to be applied to the patient, and how the mag­ni­tude of that ener­gy can vary as a func­tion of spa­tial ori­en­ta­tion to the sub­ject and time over which treat­ment is applied. The ‘431 patent broad­ly cov­ers a method relat­ing to cal­cu­lat­ing the amount of ener­gy to be pro­vid­ed based on head spa­tial struc­tures and eletrical/magnetic prop­er­ties of anatom­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics. The 22 claims cov­er var­i­ous embod­i­ments includ­ing anatom­i­cal mod­el­ing struc­ture tech­niques (with 3‑D shell mod­els), types of stim­u­la­tion device, and appli­ca­tions of stim­u­la­tion depend­ing on rel­a­tive posi­tion­ing and the spe­cif­ic area being stim­u­lat­ed. Despite a poten­tial design- around with a tar­get­ed stim­u­la­tion sys­tem that may not con­sid­er electrical/magnetic prop­er­ties of the tar­get­ed anatom­i­cal struc­ture but may sim­ply con­sid­er mechan­i­cal or flu­id prop­er­ties such as the amount of blood flow to a brain region, the gen­er­al­ly broad claim cov­er­age in the impor­tant field relat­ing to loca­tion-depen­dent treat­ment para­me­ters con­tribute to mak­ing the ‘431 patent a key non-inva­sive neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent.

Abstract:

A method for stim­u­lat­ing a par­tic­u­lar area of a brain using a stim­u­la­tion device includes detect­ing a spa­tial struc­ture of a head and deter­min­ing elec­tri­cal and/or mag­net­ic prop­er­ties of at least one part of anatom­i­cal struc­tures of the head. An ener­gy amount to be pro­vid­ed by the stim­u­la­tion device for stim­u­lat­ing the par­tic­u­lar area of the brain is cal­cu­lat­ed auto­mat­i­cal­ly based on the spa­tial struc­ture of the head and the deter­mined elec­tri­cal and/or mag­net­ic prop­er­ties of at least one part of the anatom­i­cal struc­tures of the head.

Illus­tra­tive Claim 1. A method for stim­u­lat­ing a par­tic­u­lar area of a brain using a stim­u­la­tion device, said method comprising:

  • detect­ing a spa­tial struc­ture of a head;
  • deter­min­ing elec­tri­cal and/or mag­net­ic prop­er­ties of at least one part of anatom­i­cal struc­tures of the head;
  • using a com­pu­ta­tion­al unit to cal­cu­late an ener­gy amount to be pro­vid­ed by the stim­u­la­tion device for stim­u­lat­ing the par­tic­u­lar area of the brain, said cal­cu­la­tion being based on the spa­tial struc­ture of the head and the deter­mined elec­tri­cal and/or mag­net­ic prop­er­ties of at least one part of the anatom­i­cal struc­tures of the 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.