$6,700,000 for bionic war on disabilities

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http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=18476

$6,700,000 for bionic war on disabilities

30 Dec 2004

University of Utah gets grants for devices to help paralyzed people -

University of Utah researchers have won about $6.7 million in federal grants to

develop wireless electrodes that would be implanted to provide blind people with

artificial vision and stimulate paralyzed body parts and so disabled people

could walk, talk or control a computer with their thoughts.

" We plan to spend this $6.7 million to further develop technology that we hope

will someday help blind individuals see, allow paraplegics to stand and

eventually walk, and let people with vocal cord problems speak, " says

Normann, a professor of bioengineering and ophthalmology who is helping

spearhead the project.

The money is in the form of four grants from the National Institutes of Health

to scientists at the university's College of Engineering and University of Utah

Health Sciences Center. The projects receiving the funding are intended to

expand the Utah Electrode Array technology that Normann first developed in 1989.

The Utah Electrode Array is a silicon chip measuring a quarter-inch on each side

and containing 100 tiny electrodes in a 10-by-10 grid. The array is implanted

under the dura, which is the membrane covering the brain.

Normann pursued commercial development of the Utah Electrode Array by forming a

spin-off company name Bionic Technologies, LLC, which he and co-owner Hatt

sold to Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, Inc. in 2002. Cyberkinetics

incorporated the array and other technologies into its BrainGate System, and

implanted a Utah Electrode Array into a paralyzed human patient for the first

time in June 2004. The electrodes, which poke into the part of the brain

controlling movement, allowed the patient to control a computer screen cursor by

thinking about moving the cursor.

Now, " we are trying to make the system even better " by developing a " smart "

wireless electrode array so it won't be necessary for people using the device to

have 100 wires emerging from their skull, something that raises the possibility

of infection and also of getting the wires snagged while the person is using a

wheelchair, Normann says.

" To go from a bundle of wires sticking out of somebody's head to a totally

implantable system that is invisible will be a major advance in this

technology, " he adds.

Normann has spent more than a decade developing the Utah Electrode Array so it

eventually can be implanted in the brains of blind people. They would wear a

tiny eyeglass-mounted camera to collect visual information, and then relay it to

electrodes in the brain's visual cortex. The wireless array would make such an

artificial vision system easier for blind people to wear and use.

Here are details of the four grants, which total as much as $6.658 million:

• The largest grant is for $2.816 million for four years to Florian Solzbacher

and Reid on - both assistant professors of electrical and computer

engineering - along with Normann.

They will develop a wireless version of Utah Electrode Array, which will look

much like the original but will be slightly larger and " will have electronic

circuitry integrated into it to amplify the signals from each of the 100

electrodes, do signal processing on those signals [to filter out noise and other

unimportant information] and send those signals wirelessly to a receiver located

outside of the body, " Normann says.

• A four-year grant of $2.048 million was requested by Normann; ,

an associate professor of bioengineering; Brown, a research assistant

professor in orthopedic surgery and , an assistant professor of

exercise and sport science. Normann received verbal confirmation the grant was

approved, but says the final amount may be somewhat smaller than what was

requested.

The researchers will use a version of the electrode array that has electrodes of

varying lengths, from 0.5 to 1.5 millimeters, so that when it is implanted on

nerves that control the legs or arms, it will come into contact with multiple

nerve fibers within a nerve and not just those at a single depth within the

nerve.

" This opens up a whole bunch of new applications, one of which is to implant

these electrodes in the peripheral nerves of the legs of a paraplegic, " says

Normann. " We believe that if we implant three Utah Electrodes Arrays into three

different nerves in each leg - a total of six electrode arrays - and stimulate

them appropriately, we should be able to help the paraplegic to get out of the

wheelchair, stand up and eventually walk using his or her muscles, " although

that won't be tried until after pre-clinical feasibility studies.

Another use would be to implant the array in nerves that control the bladder,

with the array run by a switch. This could allow a paraplegic to regain control

of urination.

• A $1.383 million grant for four years was awarded to bioengineering Professor

Tresco and Normann to make new Utah Electrode Arrays even more

biocompatible than they already are.

So far, nonfunctioning arrays have been implanted in nine temporal lobe epilepsy

patients before they underwent unrelated brain surgery for their disorder. The

tests found no problems. The arrays have been implanted in animals for up to

three years. Nevertheless, the body's immune system tends to " wall off " any

foreign material implanted in the brain, so Tresco and Normann will develop new

coatings for the array " so the brain is even more unaware of the fact it has

been implanted, " Normann says.

• The final grant, for $411,000 over two years, was awarded to Marshall -

an associate professor of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery - and to Normann.

says the project will determine the feasibility of using a Utah Electrode

Array to restore the ability to speak in certain people by stimulating nerves

that control the vocal folds (also known as vocal cords), which are the

voice-producing folds of tissue in the voice box or larynx.

The vocal folds open when we breathe and close when we speak. Some people lose

their voice when a vocal fold is paralyzed by stroke; trauma; damage during

surgery of the neck, thyroid or chest; or a tumor that impinges on the nerve to

the vocal fold.

" This device is going to be used in an attempt to reanimate the vocal folds to

restore the normal movement, both the opening and closing movement of the vocal

folds, " says.

The existing Utah Electrode Array will be used in initial tests, but says

he hopes a wireless version ultimately will be available to help restore speech.

Scientists at the New York State Department of Health recently gained publicity

for a noninvasive method of allowing paralyzed people to control computers or

other devices by reading brain signals using 64 electrodes in a cap placed on

the scalp. Its major advantage is that nothing needs to be surgically implanted.

But Normann says the method has a big disadvantage, namely, that signals from

nerve cells in the brain are weak and " smeared " together by the fact that the

skull and scalp jumble the signals, meaning a paralyzed person using the device

could control a computer or other device only very slowly and with considerable

training.

Implanted electrodes can more precisely " listen " to individual nerve cells and

record their activity, allowing paralyzed people to control computers or their

own limbs much more quickly, Normann says.