A team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley has revealed that the new neurostimulator which works like the human brain's pacemaker is capable of delivering fine-tuned treatment for people with epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.
Researchers said that this neurostimulator is basically a wireless device which will stimulate the brain cells with electric current. The main job of this device is to monitor the human brain's electrical activity, and it will deliver electrical stimulation if something goes amiss.
The study report published in the journal Biomedical Engineering revealed that devices like these are extremely useful in treating tremors and seizures that are associated with various neurological disorders.
The new device has been named WAND which stands for wireless artefact-free neuromodulation device. The device is both autonomous and wireless, and once it learns to recognize the pattern of seizures, it can adjust the stimulation parameters on its own to prevent unwanted movements.
"The process of finding the right therapy for a patient is extremely costly and can take years. Significant reduction in both cost and duration can potentially lead to greatly improved outcomes and accessibility. We want to enable the device to figure out what is the best way to stimulate for a given patient to give the best outcomes. And you can only do that by listening and recording the neural signatures," said Rikky Muller, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in a recently issued statement.
The researchers also added that performing neural recordings and stimulations simultaneously is quite crucial for treating conditions like epilepsy and Parkinson's disease. They even claimed that no commercial devices apart from WAND is capable of performing neural recordings and stimulations simultaneously. As this device becomes popular, it is expected that it will offer a valuable helping hand for people who suffer from various neurological conditions that negatively impact the victim's quality of life.
