A recent demonstration on mice shows that a remote control device may be implanted in the brain and with a push button could deliver drugs, reports the scientific journal Cell. This latest innovation was designed by experts at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was based on prior work wherein certain brain cells are activated using flashes of light.
The device is an thin as a human hair and is geared towards treating patients suffering from chronic pain, depression, epilepsy and other neurological problems.
The researchers hailed this as a convenient way on treating certain ailments.
"This approach potentially could deliver therapies that are much more targeted but have fewer side effects," Dr. Michael R. Bruchas, associate professor of anesthesiology and neurobiology at Washington University and a member of the research team, said during an interview. Medications usually have side effects because they interact with the other parts of the body other that do not actually need the medication. With this innovation, however, the researchers aim to minimize if not eliminate the side effects.
"The device embeds microfluid channels and microscale pumps, but is soft like brain tissue and can remain in the brain and function for a long time without causing inflammation or neural damage," the study's principal author, Dr. Jae-WoongJeong, said.
The research is still in its preliminary stage but it is expected that it will have a significant impact in the field of drug delivery systems.
Likewise, interest in delivering drugs in a novel way already caught the interest and ingenuity of experts. Last June, a team from Purdue University in Indiana worked on a new implantable drug-delivery system using nanowires that remotely controlled the release of a preloaded drug. It was tested in mice, which administered the corticosteroid dexamethasone into their spinal cord.
