neurostimulation

Augmenting physiotherapy via neurofeedback and neurostimulation: Key neurotechnology patent #43

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therapy control
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 8,121,694

Today we are shar­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing patent from Medtron­ic.  (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing 50 foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patents, from old­er to new­er by issue date)

U.S. Patent No. 8,121,694: Therapy control based on a patient movement state

  • Assignee(s): Medtron­ic, Inc.
  • Inventor(s): Gre­go­ry F. Mol­nar, Steven S. Gill, Kei­th A, Miesel, Mark S. Lent, Tim­o­thy J. Deni­son, Eric J. Panken, Carl D. Wahlstrand, Jonathan C. Werder
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Neuro-monitoring
  • Issue Date: Feb­ru­ary 21, 2012

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘694 patent dis­clos­es meth­ods to treat patients afflict­ed with move­ment or oth­er neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­or­ders through brain-sig­nal feed­back. [Read more…] about Aug­ment­ing phys­io­ther­a­py via neu­ro­feed­back and neu­rostim­u­la­tion: Key neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent #43

Fact: Lifelong neuroplasticity means our 7.5 billion brains can “sculpt” themselves

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Much ongo­ing brain health and brain enhance­ment inno­va­tion is enabled by the core fact—called neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty–that the human brain con­tin­u­al­ly changes itself through expe­ri­ence. Neuroplasticity–or brain plas­tic­i­ty– refers to the brain’s abil­i­ty to rewire itself based on expe­ri­ence by gen­er­at­ing new neu­rons and by form­ing new con­nec­tions between neu­rons, among oth­er fac­tors. It was believed for a long time that, after a cer­tain age, the brain became “fixed.” Now we know that the brain nev­er stops chang­ing, and that’s why there’s so much inter­est and hope around ways to har­ness that neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty to lead bet­ter lives, to enhance our brains, to delay brain health decline.

What fol­lows from this fact is that we can strength­en spe­cif­ic cir­cuits of the brain (through edu­ca­tion, our jobs and lifestyles, and also through men­tal exer­cis­es, med­i­ta­tion and neu­rostim­u­la­tion), in order to learn faster, bet­ter and become more resilient.

–> Keep read­ing the arti­cle 5 Facts You Need To Know To Under­stand, Nav­i­gate And Enjoy The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Rev­o­lu­tion over at The Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Debate: In the field of neurostimulation, what comes first, Published Research or Patents?

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The Brain-Zap­ping Olympians (The Ringer):

“Gain­ing jacked-up phys­i­cal pow­ers from frontal-lobe-elec­tri­fy­ing head­gear sounds like a half-baked super­hero ori­gin sto­ry. It’s also a premise that ath­letes are buy­ing as real­i­ty. NBA play­ers and Olympians are wear­ing a brain-stim­u­la­tion device called Halo Sport in an attempt to trans­form into cham­pi­ons. [Read more…] about Debate: In the field of neu­rostim­u­la­tion, what comes first, Pub­lished Research or Patents?

Recovery of visual function through neural stimulation: Key Neurotech Patent #22

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neural stimulation
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 6,990,377

Today we are shar­ing a very inter­est­ing 2006 patent, assigned to Advanced Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion Sys­tems, span­ning both inva­sive and non-inva­sive neurotechnologies.

U.S. Patent No. 6,990,377: Sys­tems and meth­ods for facil­i­tat­ing and/or effec­tu­at­ing devel­op­ment, reha­bil­i­ta­tion, restora­tion, and/or recov­ery of visu­al func­tion through neur­al stimulation.

  • Assignee(s): Advanced Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion Sys­tems, Inc.
  • Inventor(s): Brad­ford E. Glin­er, War­ren D. Sheffield
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Hybrid
  • Issue Date: Jan­u­ary 24, 2006

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘377 patent dis­clos­es treat­ments com­bin­ing mul­ti­ple neu­rotech­nolo­gies, cou­pling neu­rostim­u­la­tion tech­niques (e.g., elec­tri­cal, mag­net­ic, etc.) with soft­ware-based visu­al train­ing pro­grams. [Read more…] about Recov­ery of visu­al func­tion through neur­al stim­u­la­tion: Key Neu­rotech Patent #22

Witnessing an explosion of consumer-facing neurotechnologies to (potentially) harness lifelong neuroplasticity

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Last week I shared some key sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and invest­ment trends rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing Brain Health, based on my par­tic­i­pa­tion at the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit, and promised a sec­ond arti­cle more focused on the tech­nol­o­gy side of things.

Here it is 🙂

Just a few weeks after the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit I also attend­ed CES 2017. While I enjoyed the myr­i­ad emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies –autonomous vehi­cles, robot­ics, drones, aug­ment­ed and vir­tu­al real­i­ty head­sets, voice acti­vat­ed every­thing– I was most­ly struck by a firm named Halo Neu­ro­science. They have a fas­ci­nat­ing wear­able prod­uct, Halo Sport, claim­ing to accel­er­ate gains in strength, explo­sive­ness, endurance, and mus­cle mem­o­ry, improv­ing the brain’s response to ath­let­ic train­ing. It uses tDCS (tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion), essen­tial­ly prim­ing move­ment-relat­ed cir­cuits of the brain to become more recep­tive to stim­uli, help­ing the brain wire in the prac­tice for improved future response.

The cutting edge of applied neuroplasticity

Both con­fer­ences allowed me to see the cut­ting edge of [Read more…] about Wit­ness­ing an explo­sion of con­sumer-fac­ing neu­rotech­nolo­gies to (poten­tial­ly) har­ness life­long neuroplasticity

Trend: Consumers experiment with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with no regulatory oversight

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-- DIY tDCS device: Four 9-volt batteries and sticky self-adhesive electrodes, connected by a circuit board. Courtesy of Matt Herich
– DIY tDCS device: Four 9‑volt bat­ter­ies and sticky self-adhe­sive elec­trodes, con­nect­ed by a cir­cuit board. Cour­tesy of Matt Herich

Stu­dents Zap Their Brains For a Boost, For Bet­ter Or Worse (NPR):

“Last Octo­ber, Matt Herich was lis­ten­ing to the news while he drove door to door deliv­er­ing piz­zas. A sto­ry came on the radio about a tech­nol­o­gy that sends an elec­tric cur­rent through your brain to pos­si­bly make you bet­ter at [Read more…] about Trend: Con­sumers exper­i­ment with tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) with no reg­u­la­to­ry oversight