Promising practices to combat epilepsy proposed team of researchers from the 3 countries. Their method allows to deliver the drug directly to the nerve cells in the brain that cause seizures in the sick person. To transport the drugs to be used micropump supplying the drug against the convulsions in the corresponding parts of the brain. The new method has been successfully tested in mice, and now came the turn of the next phase of testing.
To combat epilepsy today used quite a limited number of drugs. Most of them is quite serious side effects, and 30% of the estimated 50 million people suffering from epilepsy do not respond to drugs. Experts from the Institute for Systems Neuroscience, École des Mines de Saint-Étienne and Lingchёpingskogo University have developed a technology to combat epilepsy, in which the healthy parts of the human brain is simply not affected.
Micropump, which feeds into the brain drugs 20 times thinner than a human hair. When the pump is supplied electric current, the tiny positively charged molecules, in this case - ions that carry the drug to the target area flock brain. Upon arrival, the ions activate GABA receptors A and B, which suspend the false messages sent by the brain to the central nervous system. This leads to the fact that the attack is prevented before it starts. In addition, the drug is gradually accumulated in the cells, thus reducing the frequency of attacks, and eventually all can reduce them to nothing.
The technique has already demonstrated its viability in mice, so researchers go for tests on other animals in the wild. Also, scientists are planning to combine the technique with the work of a microchip implanted in the brain, which was developed back in 2013 and was created in order to read brain activity. The combination of chip and micropump will enable researchers to create a fully autonomous system that prevents epilepsy. The research results were published in the journal Advanced Materials.