Innovation in Implantable Stimulators

By Nagi Hatoum, MD, MSEE

Biotele LLC

 

 

Why is it significant to have a versatile signal generator in the brain? The answer to this question lies in the history and technology of brain stimulation and the science of deep brain stimulation.

 

In the ‘60’s a maverick neuroscientist by the name of Jose Delgado stimulated the deeper parts of the brain. He discovered that the deep part of the brain was the control box of behavior. He is famous for implanting a device in a bull’s brain and stopping it in a full charge by remote control. Many rumors of secret government brain control projects were based on the work of Delgado. The rumors were so disturbing that he ended his research and left the USA.

 

 

Jose Delgado stopping a charging bull by remote activated stimulation of the bull’s brain

 

20 years after Delgado’s work and picking on clues in his research, it was rediscovered in France that stimulating the same part of the brain halted the symptoms of Parkinson. This was tried on human with tremendous success. People who shook like an earthquake turned as calm as a pond on a breezeless day with a flick of a switch. People who were paralyzed were up and running and dancing immediately. IT WAS A MIRACLE!

 

 

Yet deep brain stimulation for the reduction of Parkinson disease is not perfected. After implanting bulky stimulators in the chest of the patients with wires going to the head, the patient has to undergo a period of “programming”. A nurse literally fumbles with dials until the patient stop shakings, feels “well” and without any unpleasant side effects.

 

The problem is in the hardware. The same bulky pacemakers that control the rhythm of the heart are used in stimulating the brain without a single modification! The FDA could not allow it. Only FDA approved devices can be implanted in the human body and the heart pacemakers were the only FDA approved devices at the time.

 

Biotele’s Stimulator is an improvement on the pacemaker. It is smaller; it fits easily in the body and can generate any desirable waveform.  The ability to generate waveforms in the brain is important because unlike the heart, the brain is a signal processing system. The heart is satisfied with a monotonous rhythm, but the brain requires more complicated signaling.

 

Biotele’s implantable stimulator

 

The core of Biotele’s patent is the ability to record signals to memory and play them back and to embody the whole system and place it in the brain.

 

 

But it is a long way from achieving anything like Christopher Walker’s movie Brainstorm, where thoughts and experiences are recorded then played back to anybody. At this stage scientists are trying to understand how the brain talks to itself. By recording brain signals and playing them back the language of the brain can be deciphered through observation.

 

 

And by improving the waveforms the side effects of stimulation are reduced in Parkinson patients. Biotele’s device can also act as a signal relay. For example, a cut spinal cord, like that of a quadriplegic, can be virtually mended.  In places were the nerve signals are severed, commands that normally flow from the brain to the limbs are recorded at the brain then and played back to the nerves beyond the severed part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Copyright Biotele L.L.C. 2007