Device Offers Remote-Controlled Drug Delivery
A wireless device, demonstrated for the first time in mice, can be implanted in the brain and activated by the remote push of a button to deliver drugs, according to a study published in the journal Cell.
The technology, developed by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, builds upon previous work in which targeted brain cells are activated with flashes of light.
The implanted device, the width of a human hair, could one day help treat pain, depression, epilepsy and other neurological disorders in people by targeting therapies to specific brain circuits, say researchers.
“This approach potentially could deliver therapies that are much more targeted but have fewer side effects,” said co-principal investigator Michael R. Bruchas, Ph.D., associate professor of anesthesiology and neurobiology at Washington University in a release. Currently, many medications have side effects because when administered, the drug interacts with other parts of the body that are not the intended target of the drug.
By delivering a drug to a side of the mouse’s brain, researchers stimulated neurons involved in movement, which caused the animal to circle.
“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,” said co-first author Jae-Woong Jeong, Ph.D, a former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois, in the release.
In other mice, researchers shone a light directly onto their brain cells, which expressed a light-sensitive protein, prompting dopamine release. Researchers then halted the neurotransmitter’s release with the remote-controlled release of a drug that blocks dopamine’s action on receptors.
Although preliminary, the research has implications for furthering the field of drug delivery systems.
In June, a team of researchers at Purdue University in Indiana created a new implantable drug-delivery system using nanowires that can be wirelessly controlled to release a preloaded drug. The system was tested in mice with compression injuries to their spinal cords and administered the corticosteroid dexamethasone.
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