Today, a large number of illnesses are treated with medication. This is often associated with side effects that can be serious for the person who is already ill. A new therapeutic approach, known as "bioelectronic medicine", involves treating diseases using electrical stimulation. Since April 2019, the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT has been contributing its many years of expertise in the field of intelligent miniaturized active implants to the BMBF joint project Magnetoceuticals in order to develop a new type of electrostimulation system for nerve tissue.
In the BMBF joint project Magnetoceuticals, the consortium of research and industry partners is developing a novel approach to stimulating nerve tissue using electromagnetic fields. The main components of the system are an electronic device worn externally on the body and a purely passive, highly miniaturized implant without its own electronics and electrode contacts in the form of a biocompatible encapsulated magnetic body. The electronics worn on the body emit time-varying magnetic fields in the direction of the implant. The implant concentrates these and transmits them to the stimulation site. According to Maxwell's equations, the time-varying magnetic field results in a time-varying electric field which - if all parameters are selected appropriately - triggers an action potential in the tissue to be stimulated. The stimulation should be as effective and spatially resolved as is already the case today with very complex implants. This type of therapy requires no medication and no implanted electronics or electrodes.
The innovation in the project is the selective stimulation of nerves without electrodes and implanted electronics. This eliminates the need for cable connections between implant electronics and electrodes and avoids problems such as cable breakage or electrode corrosion.
breakage or electrode corrosion are avoided. As the implant has no electronics, no special precautions need to be taken to protect the implant from moisture and the lack of an implant battery means that the implant life is practically unlimited. This completely eliminates the need for surgical procedures to change the battery.
Source:
Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT
