[Research] Drug-loaded brain electrode could prevent seizures

[epileric]

I find this sort of thing both amazing & exciting.

Talk about intelligent design: a new polymer-covered electrode has the potential to monitor and deliver drugs to out-of-sync brain cells. If trials in animals are successful, it could one day help people to control epilepsy.

Neuroscientists implant microelectrode arrays in brains to eavesdrop on – and sometimes influence – the electrical activity of neurons. Why not chemically influence the brain alongside this electrical manipulation, thought Xinyan Tracy Cui at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and her colleagues.

So the team coated microelectrodes with an electrically conductive polypyrrole film. Then they loaded pockets within the film with different drugs and neurotransmitters such as glutamate, GABA and dopamine, and attached the arrays to samples of rat brain tissue.

Applying an electrical current to the polymer caused it to change shape and release its drug cargo, which then acted on surrounding cells. Cui is currently working on replicating this demonstration in living rodents.

Drug-loaded brain electrode could prevent seizures

 

[alivenwell]

That sounds like a great option. Looks like they would have to find the perfect drug across numerous patients and varying thresholds.