August 10, 2007

Implant developed for Epilepsy

A living electrode has been developed by Jenna Rickus, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue.

This implant has been specially coated with engineered neurons, what happens is when the neurons are stimulated they release a neurotransmitter, which it is said can inhibit epileptic seizures.

This comes as a result of the work that is being done on creating a neuroprosthesis that will dispense a neurotransmitter called GABA. This can help to prevent a seizure as soon as it is detected, by simply calming the brain.

This is early days, but the prospect for a medical device such as this are far reaching, and has the potential to change many thousands of lives for the better.

Source [Scientific Blogging]