Researchers Develop a Brain Pacemaker to Help Alzheimer’s Patients
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A brain pacemaker is a medical device implanted into the brain to stimulate the nervous tissues with electric signals. These pacemakers are being used widely to provide treatment to the patients having neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and others. Other than giving stimulation to the brain, pacemakers also play an essential role in stimulating the spinal cord. Brain pacemakers have been found to offer a safe and effective procedure that provides symptomatic relief to patients.
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is the use of a pacemaker-like device implanted in the brain to treat the symptoms of diseases like Parkinson’s, or other maladies such as depression. For the first time in the US, surgeons at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland have used this technique to attempt to slow memory loss in a patient suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
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Back in 2010, a safety study in Canada showed that patients with this device showed increased glucose metabolism over thirteen months while untreated patients suffered decreased glucose metabolism. While this new trial only has one patient so far, the second will be receiving the implant this month. The fornix, a vital part of the brain that brings data to the hippocampus, is being targeted with this device. Essentially, the fornix is the area of the brain that converts electrical activity into chemical activity. Holes are drilled into the skull, and wires are placed on both sides of the brain. Then, the stimulator device pumps in small and unnoticeable electrical impulses upwards of 130 times per second. Half of the patients will begin the electrical treatment two weeks post-surgery, but the other half won’t have their pacemakers turned on until a full year after the surgery to provide comparison data for the study.
While the researchers are hopeful that the deep brain stimulation will be an effective tool to treat Alzheimer’s disease directly, that isn’t the end-game. Even if these studies don’t work out as planned, it will provide better information for these researchers to develop better and less-invasive treatments going forward. It’s important to note that this is in no way meant to cure Alzheimer’s disease. However, stimulating the areas of the brain that aren’t damaged yet will hopefully drastically slow the loss of memory associated with the disease.
The fornix, a vital part of the brain that brings data to the hippocampus, is being targeted with this device. Essentially, the fornix is the area of the brain that converts electrical activity into chemical activity. Holes are drilled into the skull, and wires are placed on both sides of the brain. Then, the stimulator device pumps in small and unnoticeable electrical impulses upwards of 130 times per second. Half of the patients will begin the electrical treatment two weeks post-surgery, but the other half won’t have their pacemakers turned on until a full year after the surgery to provide comparison data for the study.
References: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/142797-brain-pacemaker-helps-treat-alzheimers-disease
https://www.theinsightpartners.com/reports/brain-pacemakers-market/