RFID in neurotech

“You have to void yourself of prejudices, pre-conceived ideas or whether you’ve seen this type of person before when it’s time to get to work on something,” said Marlin Mickle. “Because if you don’t, your mind starts to focus on that and you don’t get to what matters most. Nothing is useless to the man of sense – everything is taken into account.”

Mickle is a professor and director of the University of Pittsburgh's Radio Frequency Identification Center for Excellence and of the John A. Swanson Institute for Technical Excellence. Many innovative solutions have been developed in his labs - including a wireless deep brain stimulator and vagus nerve stimulator. The latter was developed with the help of a group of high school teachers.

The Radio Frequency-powered Neural Stimulator (RFNS) is described:

The RFNS is made up of a receiving device implanted under the skin of the neck and a powering device placed near the skin at the same site, under a collar. Because this requires only one surgical incision, rather than the two required by VNS, the risk of infection is reduced. Other advantages of RFNS over the existing VNS system include no invasive tunneling from the shoulder to the neck region and an external battery, which reduces the need for subsequent surgeries and further lowers the risk of infection.

Mickle told Applied Neurology, "People are lining up for it." The wireless DBS has already been licensed.

The only FDA-approved vagus nerve stimulator, from Cyberonics, has wire leads tunnelling through the neck. Other neurotech devices also use leads, including various DBS systems (for depression, Parkinson's, epilepsy primarily), and one that stimulates neural plasticity following stroke (also being investigated for tinnitus). Northstar Neuroscience manufactures the latter; they're presently recruiting an engineer to work on leads. Why?

One good idea can suddenly make all the others seem so clunky.

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Tags: neurotech RFID future