The delivery of electrical impulses to various areas of the brain has been used for years to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and various other afflictions. Such devices must be implanted and wires threaded through holes in the skull to the relevant brain regions. A new technique using piezoelectric nanoparticles activated by bursts of ultrasound has shown promise as a wire-free method of stimulating the brain.
Piezoelectric particles generate an electrical impulse when subjected to a physical force. They’re being studied for use in a variety of ways, from harvesting energy from the movement of traffic along the road, to helping regenerate knee cartilage, to healing damaged gums in the mouth.
In a new study, conducted by researchers at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States, piezoelectric potassium bromide particles were coated with nitric oxide. Crosses the blood-brain barrier (BBB). This barrier is a dense network of cells within the blood vessels of the brain that prevents unwanted toxins and pathogens from passing through.
Nanoparticles were tested both in Petri dishes and in live mice. In both cases, nitric oxide was released when the particles were hit by an ultrasonic pulse, allowing them to cross the BBB. They also generate electricity thanks to the power of sound waves, stimulating the cells around them, performing the same function as the wires implanted in current brain stimulators. Indeed, in mice with Parkinson’s disease, researchers reported that ‘ultrasound-responsive nanoparticles reduced disease symptoms without causing overt toxicity.’
In addition to helping control symptoms of neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy, deep brain stimulation can also be used to control obsessive-compulsive disorder. Surgery to implant an electrobrain stimulator is generally successful, but the same health risks associated with all surgeries, such as infection and excessive bleeding, are also being studied. there is. This means that a non-surgical method of delivering electrical pulses to the brain could make the treatment more widely available with significantly lower risks.
A study was published in a journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Source: Medical Express
