Researchers grap­ple with the ethics of test­ing brain implants (Sci­ence):

“In 2003, neu­rol­o­gist Helen May­berg of Emory Uni­ver­si­ty in Atlanta began to test a bold, exper­i­men­tal treat­ment for peo­ple with severe depres­sion, which involved implant­i­ng met­al elec­trodes deep in the brain in a region called area 25. The ini­tial data were promis­ing; even­tu­al­ly, they con­vinced a device com­pa­ny, St. Jude Med­ical in Saint Paul, to spon­sor a 200-per­son clin­i­cal tri­al dubbed BROADEN.

This month, how­ev­er, Read the rest of this entry »

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30,000+ sci­en­tists and pro­fes­sion­als gath­ered for the annu­al Soci­ety for Neu­ro­science con­fer­ence in Chica­go last month, prov­ing the grow­ing inter­est and activ­i­ties to bet­ter under­stand the inner work­ings of the human brain, and to dis­cov­er ways and tech­nolo­gies to enhance its health and per­for­mance.

Now, which of all those ongo­ing efforts are clos­er to touch­ing our lives, to empow­er con­sumers, patients and health pro­fes­sion­als? Read the rest of this entry »

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Found­ed in 1979, Advanced Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion Sys­tems devel­oped into a tech­nol­o­gy leader for implantable neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion devices. ANS spe­cial­izes in Spinal Cord Stim­u­la­tion (SCS), which can be used for chron­ic pain treat­ments. ANS holds patents for Read the rest of this entry »