Technology demonstrated for the first time in mice
(July 16, 2015) read entire press relea A team of researchers has developed a
wireless device the width of a human hair that can be implanted in the brain
and activated by remote control to deliver drugs.
The technology, demonstrated for the first time in mice, one
day may be used to treat pain, depression, epilepsy and other neurological
disorders in people by targeting therapies to specific brain circuits,
according to the researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in
St. Louis and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The research is a major step forward in pharmacology and
builds on earlier work in optogenetics, a technology that makes individual
brain cells sensitive to light and then activates those targeted populations of
cells with flashes of light. Because it’s not yet practical to re-engineer
human neurons, the researchers made the tiny wireless devices capable of
delivering drugs directly into the brain, with the remote push of a button.
“In the future, it should be possible to manufacture therapeutic
drugs that could be activated with light,” said co-principal investigator
Michael R. Bruchas, PhD, associate professor of anesthesiology and neurobiology
at Washington University. “With one of these tiny devices implanted, we could
theoretically deliver a drug to a specific brain region and activate that drug
with light as needed. This approach potentially could deliver therapies that
are much more targeted but have fewer side effects.”
The study will be published online July 16 in the journal Cell
and appear in the July 30 print issue.