Explore more about: Electric stimulation

While pacemakers have treated many patients with heart rhythm disorders, their bulky design and use of wires limits their usefulness and poses a risk of heart damage or infection. Now, researchers have cut the cords, shrunk the size, and expanded the capabilities of current designs.

Researchers have long recognized the therapeutic potential of using magnetoelectrics ⎯ materials that can turn magnetic fields into electric fields ⎯ to stimulate neural tissue in a minimally invasive way and help treat neurological disorders or nerve damage. A Rice University led team have designed the first magnetoelectric material that can be used to precisely stimulate neurons remotely and to bridge the gap in a broken sciatic nerve in a rat model.  Source: Rice University

The National Institutes of Health, through its Blueprint MedTech program, has established two incubator hubs and launched a funding solicitation in support of commercially viable, clinically focused neurotechnology solutions to diagnose and treat disorders of the nervous system.

Osteoarthritis – a painful condition that results from the deterioration of the cartilage in our joints – affects millions of people worldwide. To combat this issue, NIBIB-funded researchers are developing an implantable, biodegradable film that helps to regenerate the native cartilage at the site of damage. Their study, performed in rabbits, could be an initial, important step in the establishment of a new treatment.

Bioengineers have developed biocompatible self-assembling “piezoelectric wafers,” which can be made rapidly and inexpensively to enable broad use of implantable muscle-powered electromechanical therapies.

Neuroengineers have created a tiny surgical implant that can electrically stimulate the brain and nervous system without using a battery or wired power supply.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin (UW) are adapting a minimally invasive, safer approach to electrically treat pain directly at the source as part of the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative.

Electrically stimulating nerves can reduce epileptic seizures, soothe chronic pain, and treat depression. Now, biomedical engineers have made a significant advance that could dramatically reduce the cost of neuromodulation therapy, increase its reliability and make it much less invasive.

Low-frequency electric stimulation shows promise as a possible alternative to medications for restoring hair growth in people whose hair has begun to thin.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given clearance to market and sell the powered lower-limb exoskeleton created by a team of Vanderbilt engineers and commercialized by the Parker Hannifin Corporation for both clinical and personal use in the United States.