Wireless implant can trigger and block pain
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed implants that one day may be used in different parts of the body to fight pain that doesn’t respond to other therapies.
“Our eventual goal is to use this technology to treat pain in very specific locations by providing a kind of ‘switch’ to turn off the pain signals long before they reach the brain,” said co-senior investigator Robert W. Gereau IV, PhD, the Dr. Seymour and Rose T. Brown Professor of Anesthesiology and director of the Washington University Pain Center.
Because the devices are soft and stretchable, they can be implanted into parts of the body that move. The devices previously developed by the scientists had to be anchored to bone.
The new devices are held in place with sutures. Like the previous models, they contain microLED lights that can activate specific nerve cells. Researchers hope to use the implants to blunt pain signals in patients who have pain that cannot be managed with standard therapies.
The researchers experimented with mice that were genetically engineered to have light-sensitive proteins on some of their nerve cells.
To demonstrate that the implants could influence the pain pathway in nerve cells, the researchers activated a pain response with light. When the mice walked through a specific area in a maze, the implanted devices lit up and caused the mice to feel discomfort. Upon leaving that part of the maze, the devices turned off, and the discomfort dissipated. As a result, the animals quickly learned to avoid that part of the maze.
Because the new, smaller, devices are flexible and can be held in place with sutures, they also may have potential uses in or around the bladder, stomach, intestines, heart or other organs, according to co-principal investigator John A. Rogers, PhD, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois.
The study is published online in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
