Berkeley Start-upsBrain Implant Possible Treatment for Mental Illness
by Tamra Teig
The use of deep brain stimulation that is currently used to treat physical ailments such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease is now being evaluated as a potential treatment for anxiety, depression, addiction and other mental illnesses.
Neurological device start-up Cortera Neurotechnologies is a key partner in the five-year, $26 million research effort exploring the use of implanted electro-stimulators. The program represents about one-eighth of the $300 million budget for the BRAIN Initiative President Obama unveiled in April of 2013.
Hopes for the new technology are high…
…particularly for veterans returning from combat with traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder, and the twenty percent of depression and anxiety sufferers for whom medications and psychotherapy don’t work.
The research involves implanting an electronic device in the brain of a mentally-ill patient to stimulate healthy brain patterns, and retraining the brain to strengthen the connections to these normal pathways. The belief is that brain stimulation could ultimately cure the patient, allowing the device to be removed eventually.
According to Jonathan Wallis, a psychologist at the University of California Berkeley who is involved in the project, the therapy is revolutionary because it focuses on the affected areas of the brain, rather than using a systemic medication. ”We’re developing an entirely different approach to the treatment of mental illness, by using brain implants to target a small population of neurons involved in the disorders, instead of using drugs that change broad swaths of activity.”
Illustration courtesy of Lawrence Livermore Labs
Anxiety disorders alone account for one-third of U.S. health care costs; Dr. Edward F. Chang, neurological surgeon at UCSF and co-director of the Center for Neural Engineering & Prostheses (CNEP) at UC Berkeley/San Francisco, says mental illness is “Probably the biggest cause of disabilities worldwide.”
The devices should be ready for human trials by the end of 2019, in patients who are already receiving deep brain stimulation to treat epilepsy or Parkinson’s disease.
Another application: paralyzed patients who are unable to speak may soon be able to translate their silent thoughts into spoken words.
1. A patient thinks the word “cat,” producing particular brain-wave patterns in the speech and motor areas of the brain.
2. An array of microsensors picks up signals from those areas, including the ones likely to contain “cat,” and translates them into digital information.
3. A processor compresses the data and wirelessly transmits it through the skull and scalp.
4. A decoder receives the brain signals and uses complex algorithms called spectral analysis and pattern recognition to interpret the digital language and translate it to “cat.”
5. A speech synthesizer converts the digital signal into sound: “cat!”
http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/thinking-makes-it-go#sthash.XfjCF1SH.dpuf Source: San Francisco Magazine
Note: Rikky Muller, co-founder & CTO at Cortera Neurotechnologies, Inc. is an alumnus of University of California, Berkeley.
