Boston Scientific is releasing in the United States its Wavewriter Alpha line of spinal cord stimulators. The four Wavewriter Alpha pain management devices provide Bluetooth connectivity, allow patients to still be scanned under MRI, given certain precautions, and offer so-called Fast Acting Sub-perception Therapy (FAST). FAST is exciting because i (Read more...)
Tag: Neurosurgery
3D Imaging Illuminates Internal Structure of Brain Spheroids
Researchers at the Wyss Center in Geneva and collaborators have developed novel imaging and labeling techniques to view the internal structure of brain spheroids, and observe the morphology of single neurons in 3D. Brain spheroids, which the researchers term “mini brains,” are a cluster of different types of brain cells, and are culture (Read more...)
Radiotherapy to Prevent Recurrence Post Brain Tumor Excision: Interview with Matthew Likens, President and CEO of GT Medical
GT Medical Technologies, a company based in Arizona, has developed the FDA-approved GammaTile system, which can provide localized radiation therapy for brain tumor excision sites. Its goal is to reduce tumor recurrence and enhance patient survival. The treatment consists of radiation seeds encased in a collagen substrate. These are easy to place at (Read more...)
Symani Microsurgical System Cleared in Europe
Medical Microinstruments (MMI), a company based outside of Pisa, Italy, won the European CE Mark of approval for its Symani robotic surgical system. The product provides 7-20X scaling of hand movements, automatically removing tremors to allow for safe microsurgical and supermicrosurgical procedures. It is hoped that this impressive new device can h (Read more...)
Portable Surgical Robot for Minimally Invasive Procedures: Interview with John Murphy, CEO of Virtual Incision
Virtual Incision, a company based in Lincoln, Nebraska, has developed the miniaturized in vivo robotic assistant (MIRA) platform to perform minimally invasive abdominal surgeries, such as colon resections. Conceived as a small and accessible surgical robotic support device, the miniaturized system is considerably less expensive than current robotic (Read more...)
High Resolution Ultrasound for Precise Tumor Ablation
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute and the University of Stuttgart in Germany have developed a method to create high-resolution ultrasound fields, a capability which may improve the effectiveness of ultrasound therapies and tailor them for individual patients. The technique involves passing ultrasonic waves through water, where hydrogen bubble (Read more...)
FlowSense Monitors Hydrocephalus Shunts: Exlusive with Anna Lisa Somera, CEO of Rhaeos
Hydrocephalus patients have an excess of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, which needs to be drained away through a ventricular shunt. However, these shunts regularly fail, with potentially life-threatening results. At present, there isn’t an easy way to check that a shunt is still working, and clinicians typically use brain MRI/CT scans to s (Read more...)
Wireless Brain Implant to Give Sight to Blind
Scientists in Australia are gearing up for clinical trials of a brain implant that may restore limited sight in blind people. Developed at Monash University in Melbourne, the Gennaris system involves bypassing the eye completely and targeting the vision center of the brain. A person would wear a pair of glasses outfitted with a camera […]
Electrocorticography Implant for Plug and Play Brain-Computer Control
Researchers at UC San Francisco have used an electrocorticography (ECoG) implant to develop a brain-computer interface that does not need to be recalibrated and retrained each time it is used, allowing an experienced user to plug in and begin using the system at any time. The technique could allow for brain controlled prosthetic limbs or […]
(Read more...)Elon Musk’s Neuralink Shares More About Its Implantable Brain Stimulator
Neuralink, one of Elon Musk’s newest ventures, was founded in 2016 but little has been known about the startup other than that it would somehow actualize Musk’s vision of a revolutionary implantable brain device. During a webcast last week, Musk and his team unveiled a bit more about what the company has been up to, […]
Origami Surgical Manipulator to Perform Microsurgeries
Robotic surgical assistants, such as the da Vinci systems from Intuitive Surgical, are now routinely used during laparoscopic procedures to improve operative precision, flexibility, and to manipulate multiple tools at once. Such devices can be quite complex inside and so they tend to be quite large, often taking up much of the space of an [… (Read more...)
TIGERTRIEVER XL Cleared in EU to Remove Large Stroke Clots
Israel’s Rapid Medical has won European regulatory clearance to introduce its TIGERTRIEVER XL device for removing large ischemic stroke-causing clots from intracranial vessels. The company calls its line of devices “stentrievers,” as these look and operate similar to stents but can retrieve clots out of the body. The TIGERTRIEVER (Read more...)
InterStim Micro and SureScan MRI Leads Approved in U.S. for Incontinence Control
Medtronic has landed FDA approval for its InterStim Micro neurostimulator and the matching InterStim SureScan MRI leads that are used to treat overactive bladder, fecal incontinence, and non-obstructive urinary retention. The InterStim Micro is a miniaturized version of Medtronic’s InterStim II neuromodulator, being 80% smaller, but it is rec (Read more...)
Spinal Cord Stimulators Give Robotic Prostheses a Sense of Touch
Upper arm prostheses that give their users a sense of touch have been developed in the past (see flashbacks below). These require careful surgical placement of electrodes near the remaining nerves within the stump and precise stimulation of said nerves. Now researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have achieved a remarkable feat of using existin (Read more...)
Mechanically Stimulating Neurons Using Magnetic Nanodiscs
Electrical stimulation and chemical pharmaceuticals are the two ways that doctors and scientists routinely use to manipulate neural cells. Chemicals have their side effects, are slow to take effect, and are usually systemically delivered, while electrical stimulation usually requires invasive wires, is limited in its resolution, and is nearly impos (Read more...)
Micro-LEDs and Solar Panels Wirelessly Power Medical Implants
Researchers at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea have developed a method to wirelessly power implanted devices using light. The technique involves a micro-LED patch to transmit light through the skin and a photovoltaic system on implanted devices that can turn this light into electricity. This technology could help rese (Read more...)
Robotic Transcranial Doppler for Stroke Detection and Risk Assessment in COVID: Interview with Diane Bryant, Neural Analytics
Emerging evidence suggests that COVID-19 patients are at a higher risk of stroke and promptly diagnosing and treating such patients is a priority in hospitals across the world. Moreover, identifying which COVID-19 patients are at increased risk of developing a stroke is also important, and may help with preemptive treatment and monitoring. The Luci (Read more...)
Go-2 Spinal Stimulator Helps Return Leg Function: Interview with Jan Öhrström, Chairman of the Board, GTX Medical
GTX Medical, a medtech company with offices in The Netherlands and Switzerland, has announced that it received Breakthrough Device Designation for the Go-2 system, an implant that provides targeted epidural spinal stimulation therapy for patients with spinal cord injuries. The device aims to allow such patients to regain leg motor function and neur (Read more...)
ReActiv8 Neurostimulator Treats Cause of Back Pain, Now FDA Approved
Mainstay Medical, an Irish firm, just won FDA approval to introduce its ReActiv8 neurostimulator that works to address the underlying causes of back pain. Most existing pain reducing implants work to simply mask the pain by delivering electrical signals to the relevant nerves. The ReActiv8 instead stimulates the multifidus muscle, that lies next to (Read more...)
Easily Removable Surgical Tape to Seal Internal Wounds
Researchers at MIT recently developed an adhesive tape that allows surgeons to seal internal wounds and that can readily stick to slippery internal surfaces, as a potential replacement for sutures. However, the adhesive worked a little too well, and was difficult to remove or adjust without causing irritation or tissue damage. Now, the research tea (Read more...)