Epilepsy is one of the chronic neurological disorders that plagues nearly 50 million people worldwide. Apart from the seizures, what makes it worse is that there are no viable treatment options.
However, researchers at the University of Cambridge recently created a brain implant that can stop epileptic seizures.
How does it work?
Neurons in the brain are always firing electrical impulses to relay information. But in an epileptic seizure, the brain becomes hyperactive, leading to excessive electrical impulses. This interferes with the control of a person's movements and also leads to loss of consciousness.
Although other scientists have developed implants that cauterize the brain with electricity to stop seizures, this implant works very differently.
It is an electronic chip implant that can detect the "electrical storm" in the brain when an epileptic seizure begins and releases natural chemicals to block the brain cells that cause the seizures.
Upon detecting the electrical signals generated when a seizure begins, an ion pump is activated. This pump releases a chemical called GABA, which stops the firing of the brain cells that cause seizures.
Epilepsy is generally treated with antiepileptic drugs, but these can have serious side effects. In fact, 3 out of 10 patients do not respond to treatment at all. In such cases, these brain implants can prove very useful.
The researchers have successfully tested the brain implant in mice. They now aim to scale up the device, which is twice the size of a human hair, and prepare it for human trials in the coming years.
