Study reveals potential to reverse lung fibrosis using the body’s own healing technique

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

The most common type of lung fibrosis — scarring of the lungs -- is idiopathic, meaning of unknown cause. 

Researchers are urgently trying to find ways to prevent or slow idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and related lung conditions, which can cause worsening shortness of breath, dry cough, and extreme fatigue. Average survival following diagnosis of IPF is just three to five years, and the disease has no cure.

A recent U-M study from a team led by Sean Fortier, M.D. and Marc Peters-Golden, M.D. of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at U-M Medical School uncovers a pathway used during normal wound healing that has the potential to reverse IPF.

Using a mouse model, they simulated IPF by administering bleomycin, a chemotherapy agent that causes cell injury and confirmed that the resulting lung scarring resolved itself over the span of about six weeks. 

Because of this, “studying fibrosis is kind of tough,” said Fortier.  “If we’re going to give experimental drugs to try and resolve fibrosis, we have to do it before it resolves on its own. 

Otherwise, we will not be able to tell if the resolution was the action of the drug or natural repair mechanisms of the body.”

However, he said, “there’s actually a lot to learn about how the mouse gets better on its own. If we can learn the molecular mechanisms by which this occurs, we may uncover new targets for IPF.”

The process by which lung injury either leads to healing or fibrosis relies in part on what happens to a cell called a fibroblast, which forms connective tissue. 

During injury or illness, fibroblasts are activated, becoming myofibroblasts that form scar tissue by secreting collagen. When the job is done, these fibroblasts must be deactivated, or de-differentiated, to go back to their quiet state or undergo programmed cell death and be cleared. 

“This is the major distinction between normal wound healing and fibrosis – the persistence of activated myofibroblasts,” explained Fortier. That deactivation is controlled by molecular brakes. The study examined one of these brakes, called MKP1 – which the team found was expressed at lower levels in fibroblasts from patients with IPF.

By genetically eliminating MKP1 in fibroblasts of mice after establishing lung injury, the team saw that fibrosis continued uncontrolled.

“Instead of at day 63, seeing that nice resolution, you still see fibrosis,” said Fortier. 

“We argued by contradiction: when you knock out this brake, fibrosis that would otherwise naturally disappear, persists and therefore MKP1 is necessary for spontaneous resolution of fibrosis.”

They performed several additional studies using CRISPR techniques to demonstrate how MKP1 applies the brakes, mainly by deactivating the enzyme p38α, which is implicated in a cell’s reaction to stress.

Furthermore, they demonstrated that neither of the two current FDA approved drugs for lung fibrosis, pirfenidone and nintedanib, are able to turn off myofibroblasts.

“That’s totally in keeping with the fact that they do slow the progression, but they don’t halt or reverse disease,” said Fortier.

Fortier hopes the discovery that this pathway reverses fibrosis leads to exploration of additional brakes on fibrosis. 

“So much work on fibrosis has focused on how we can prevent it, but when a patient presents to my clinic with a dry cough, shortness of breath, and low oxygen as a result of underlying IPF, the scarring is already present. Of course, we’d love a way to prevent the scarring from getting worse, but the Holy Grail is to reverse it.”

Additional authors: Natalie Walker, Loka R. Penke, Jared Baas, Qinxue Shen, Jennifer Speth, Steven K. Huang, Rachel L. Zemans, and Anton M. Bennett

Citation: “MAP kinase phosphatase-1 inhibition of p38α within lung myofibroblasts is essential for spontaneous fibrosis resolution,” Journal of Clinical Investigation. DOI: 10.1172/JCI172826

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JOURNAL

Journal of Clinical Investigation

DOI

10.1172/JCI172826 

ARTICLE TITLE

MAP kinase phosphatase-1 inhibition of p38α within lung myofibroblasts is essential for spontaneous fibrosis resolution

 

International team co-led by a BSC researcher discovers more than 50 new deep-sea species in one of the most unexplored areas of the planet

The role of BSC and supercomputing in the expedition is to provide climate modelling data through different future scenarios to determine the distribution of species in the area

Reports and Proceedings

BARCELONA SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER

 

IMAGE: 

A CHAUNAX DOCUMENTED ON THE SOUTHWESTERN FLANK OF RAPA NUIA CHAUNAX (GENUS OF BONY FISH IN THE SEA TOAD FAMILY) DOCUMENTED DURING DIVE 664, A TRANSECT IS LOCATED ON THE SOUTHWESTERN FLANK OF RAPA NUI. THE DIVE BEGAN AT ~600 M DEPTH AND TRAVELED UPSLOPE TO ~200-300 M. THE ISLAND IS LOCATED NEAR THE WESTERN EXTENT OF THE SALAS Y GÓMEZ RIDGE OF UNDERWATER MOUNTAINS.

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CREDIT: ROV SUBASTIAN / SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE

An international group of scientists, co-led by researcher Ariadna Mechó of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), observed 160 species on seamounts off the coast of Chile that had not yet been known to live in the region and suspect that at least 50 of these species are new to science. The recent Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition to the underwater mountains of the Salas y Gómez Ridge, a remote and underexplored area that stretches from offshore Chile to Rapa Nui, resulted in identifying deep-sea corals, glass sponges, sea urchins, squids, fishes, molluscs, crabs, sea stars, squat lobsters, and other species likely never-before observed by scientists.

Mechó, a researcher in the Climate Variability and Change group at the BSC’s Earth Sciences Department, presented the results of the 40-day scientific cruise ‘Unexplored Seamounts of the Salas y Gómez Ridge’ and the current negotiations to create a blue corridor in the area at the “Ocean Decade MPA Forum: Progress, obstacles and solutions”, an off-site event organised in the framework of the UN Ocean Decade Conference held in Barcelona from 10-12 April 2024.

“The main results of this campaign are that we have found between 50 and 60 potentially new species at first sight, a number that is likely to increase as we have many samples to work on in the laboratory. We also found one of the deepest mesophotic corals in the world, extending the distribution of this Polynesian fauna by several hundred kilometres. And at depth, we have found fields of sponges and corals, habitats that are considered vulnerable and in need of protection”, said Mechó.

The expedition took place from 24 February to 4 April with an international team of 25 scientists from 14 organisations in five countries (Chile, United States, Italy, Spain, Netherlands), including the first Rapa Nui marine biologist, Emilia Ra'a Palma Tuki, a recent graduate of the Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile. The Rapa Nui Sea Council, or Koro Nui o te Vaikava, supported the expedition, providing the main permit to work in the area, and collaborated by providing a Koro Nui observer and a local sailing expert to bring to the expedition their perspectives as members of the Rapa Nui community.

The information collected during this research expedition will provide the scientific basis to inform the management of existing marine protected areas and potentially expand them, especially around the island of Rapa Nui.

ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean InstituteAn octopus documented during Dive 674, an exploration transect on the southeastern flank of an unexplored and unnamed seamount located within the national jurisdiction of Chile, east of Motu Motiro Hiva, an uninhabited island along the Salas y Gómez Ridge. The dive started at ~800 m depth and traveled upslope to ~270 m. This island is located near the western-central extent of the Salas y Gómez Ridge.

CREDIT

ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

One of the most unexplored areas of the planet

Funded by the Schmidt Ocean Institute, the cruise is devoted to studying the ecosystems of one of the most unexplored areas of the world, the submarine mountains and oceanic islands of the Salas y Gómez Ridge, which is a 2,900-kilometre-long underwater mountain chain comprising more than 200 seamounts from offshore Chile to Rapa Nui, otherwise known as Easter Island (or Isla de Pascua).

This ridge hosts one of the most unique and biodiverse seascapes on Earth, with an extremely high rate of endemism, critical habitats for benthic organisms, essential migration corridors for highly mobile species, and the presence of over 80 threatened or endangered species.

In addition, the Salas y Gómez Ridge possesses a rich cultural and maritime heritage with profound connections to Indigenous islander and mainland communities and other nations. This remote, underexplored region likely harbours pristine and unexploited habitats with abundant biodiversity that require international cooperation to protect them before they are lost.

A deep-sea dragon fish, an apex predator with enormous jaws filled with fang-like teeth, seen during Dive 674 along a transect on the southeastern flank of an unexplored and unnamed seamount located within the national jurisdiction of Chilé, east of Motu Motiro Hiva, an uninhabited island along the Salas y Gómez Ridge. The dive started at ~800 m depth and traveled upslope to ~270 m. This island is located near the western-central extent of the Salas y Gómez Ridge.

CREDIT

ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

Modelling the ocean with supercomputing

The role of BSC and supercomputing in the campaign is to provide climate modelling data through different scenarios to establish the distribution of key species in the area. This will help us understand how these species will be impacted by future changes, depending on each possible scenario.

“But first, we need to better understand the biodiversity and connectivity of the region to know which keystone species are found there and on which mountains exactly, as well as potential faunal breaks (where communities change or stop connecting with each other). Basically, it is a unique exploration in places where practically everything is unexplored”, said Mechó.

The aim is to provide the critical information to support the designation of the Salas y Gomez Ridge as an ecologically and biologically significant marine area (EBSA) by the Convention on Biological Diversity and an ecological and socioeconomic ‘priority area’ for international protection, by the High Seas Treaty (2023).

This cruise was strongly connected with an earlier campaign deployed between January and February 2024 and focused on studying the junction between the Salas y Gomez and the Nazca Ridge, and the Desventuradas Islands. During the 2 cruises, more than 100 new species have been discovered on the Salas y Gomez and the Nazca Ridge (SyGR), as well as coral and sponge gardens. That will emphasise the need for a blue corridor along the Salas y Gómez and Nazca Ridges, creating one of the first and larger high-seas marine protected areas in the world.

[Ariadna Mechó received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No GA 101107435]

 

Where have all the right whales gone?

Statistical models, hydrophone network deployed to fight right whale extinction threat

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

THREE RIGHT WHALES OBSERVED FROM THE AIR. (NMFS PERMIT #21482 2)

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CREDIT: MARK COTTER/HDR

DURHAM, N.C. – Marine researchers have mapped the density of one of the most endangered large whale species worldwide, the North Atlantic right whale, using newly analyzed data to predict and help avoid whales’ harmful, even fatal, exposure to commercial fishing and vessel strikes.

Duke University’s Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab led a collaboration of 11 institutions in the United States that pooled 17 years of available visual survey data covering 9.7 million square kilometers of the U.S. Atlantic – roughly the same area as the entire contiguous United States.

This information was coupled with auditory data from almost 500 hydrophone recorders in US Atlantic waters that captured whales’ calls. Lining up visual and acoustic datasets for the first time, researchers built a statistical model to estimate the number of whales per square kilometer at different points in time. Researchers published their findings on March 20, 2024 in Marine Ecology Progress Series.

“The more accurate and detailed the mapping, the better chance we have to save dwindling numbers of right whales from preventable injury and fatality,” said Patrick Halpin, director of Duke’s Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab. The lab studies marine ecology, resource management, and ocean conservation, using data to inform ocean management and governance.

Other current real-time efforts to track and protect the whales from deadly encounters with human activities have been incomplete or ineffective. Electronic tagging can harm whale health, and it is infeasible to continuously monitor more than a small fraction of the population that way.

The statistical model is a revision of a 2016 model that predicts whale density from environmental data, like sea surface temperature. This latest version incorporates new data to reflect whales’ changing migration and feeding patterns, including their presence in new areas that lack protection measures for marine life.

“With nearly three times more aerial survey data than we had before, and confirming evidence from the hydrophones, we were able to show how strongly the population has shifted its distribution,” said Jason Roberts, a Duke research associate and lead author of the study.

Right whales maintain the health and balance of marine environments and the entire food web through their feeding habits. As climate change has reduced the population of their prey, whale migration patterns have become more unpredictable, increasing the chances that human activities, like commercial fishing, may harm whale health and chances of reproduction.

Using maps obtained by satellite ocean monitoring, or from physical ocean models like the recently published one, researchers can more accurately predict whale density across the U.S. east coast.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, known as NOAA Fisheries, a federal agency within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, uses this model to assess and mitigate risks to large whales posed by activities such as trap and pot fishing, vessel traffic, naval testing and training, and offshore energy activities.

This research supports NOAA Fisheries’ overarching North Atlantic Right Whale Road to Recovery, which describes the agency’s efforts to address threats to the species, and monitor recovery progress. In the United States, the Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits intentional harming or disturbance (known as “takes”) of marine mammals by human activity, and limits takes that happen incidentally.

NOAA Fisheries estimates the number of accidental occurrences of whales harmed, and implements measures to minimize harm. Endangered North Atlantic right whales are approaching extinction. Elevated right whale deaths triggered an Unusual Mortality Event  in 2017. In recent years, 125 whales have died or been seriously injured, mostly from entanglements in fishing gear and being struck by vessels in both U.S. and Canadian waters.

NOAA Fisheries and the US Navy co-funded the study.

An aerial survey plane circles above a right whale. (NMFS permit #14233)

CREDIT

Esther Quintana/NEAQ

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JOURNAL

Marine Ecology Progress Series

DOI

10.3354/meps14547 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

North Atlantic Right Whale Density Surface Model for the US Atlantic Evaluated With Passive Acoustic Monitoring

 

Theories that explain the crisis in democracy are inadequate for Latin America, experts say

Countries in the region are experiencing a different phenomenon from that observed in the United States and Europe, where increased social inequality may have been the cause of the advance of political polarization.

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

IMAGE: 

MARTA ARRETCHE DURING HER LECTURE AT FAPESP WEEK ILLINOIS 

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CREDIT: ELTON ALISSON/AGÊNCIA FAPESP

The theories offered by the dominant literature in political science today to try to explain the sources of the political polarization that has endangered democracy around the world are adequate for the United States and Europe, but do not make sense for the countries of Latin America. For this reason, greater collaboration among political scientists is needed to identify other, more plausible hypotheses for the phenomenon that the region is also experiencing.

The assessment was made by researchers participating in a panel discussion on democracy and social inclusion held on April 9 in Chicago (United States) during FAPESP Week Illinois https://fapesp.br/week/2024/illinois.

“There’s an avenue for possible research collaboration between Latin American and North American political scientists, for example, to advance in identifying the sources of political polarization in the two regions and to overcome this challenge in the literature. We have a lot of data and interest in working together to better understand this phenomenon,” said Marta Arretche, professor at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil and researcher at the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM) – a FAPESP Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center (RIDC).

According to the researcher, the most influential literature in the social sciences today, mainly in the United States and Europe, establishes a positive link between social inequality and political polarization to explain the rise in electoral strength of extreme right-wing parties and the threats to democratic institutions.

According to this theory, wealthier democracies have experienced an increase in social inequality, which would be the cause of voter support for the proposals of far-right parties.

“According to this theory, the left-wing parties have somehow abandoned their traditional electorate and implemented pro-rich policies, and so the right-wing parties have exploited the discontent of the poorest, who have lost out in the current democratic regimes. But recent research in Latin America, and Brazil in particular, provides good evidence that this may not be true for countries in the region,” Arretche said.

Ongoing postdoctoral research at the CEM on the determinants of political polarization in Latin America shows that although the Gini index (a measure of social inequality) has decreased since the early 2000s, political polarization in Latin American countries has increased over the same period.

“There’s evidence for Latin America that doesn’t confirm the positive association between increases in inequality and increases in polarization. On the contrary, it shows a negative association,” Arretche said.

Another study, also conducted by Brazilian political scientists, on how the perception of gaining or losing social status influences the political positions of the Brazilian electorate, showed that those who vote for left-wing parties in the country are those who believe they have gained centrality in the political arena in the last 20 years. On the other hand, those who voted for right-wing parties perceive themselves as having lost centrality in recent years.

“The conclusion of the authors of this study also goes in the opposite direction of the dominant literature on the United States and Europe. They conclude that the progressive policies implemented by left-wing parties in Brazil since the early 2000s have shaped the political divide that exists today,” Arretche explains.

On the other hand, another ongoing study conducted by the researcher and her collaborators also provides some evidence of disenchantment among Workers’ Party (PT) voters in recent years.

“The party has lost support among its own voters during the crises that Brazil has gone through in the last five years,” Arretche said.

Political crisis

The changes that have taken place in Brazil since 2013, marked by a very intense political crisis, have changed the behavior of actors and generated instability in the pillars of coalition presidentialism in the country, pointed out Andrea Freitas, coordinator of the Center for Public Opinion Studies at the State University of Campinas (CESOP-UNICAMP).

This parliamentary regime that exists in Brazil and other countries, in which the president tries to form coalitions because he doesn’t have a majority in the legislature, could change its configuration in the country, the researcher said.

“My hypothesis is that given the long period of political crisis that Brazil has gone through in the last ten years, there’s been a real change in the behavior of political actors in the country, and we’re no longer going back to the same institutional bases of coalition presidentialism. We’re going to have to build a different relationship,” Freitas said.

Health inequalities

Brazil and other countries have also undergone transformations in other areas, such as health, that may contribute to increasing levels of inequality in the country, explained Rudi Rocha, a professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in São Paulo.

One of these changes is the aging of the population, which means that health systems not only in Brazil but in many other countries will have to deal with an increasing number of chronic diseases and other conditions that are more expensive to treat, Rocha noted.

“In the past, health systems in countries like Brazil only had to deal with childhood infectious diseases, which are cheap to treat through vaccination, for example. Now, in low- and middle-income countries, inequalities will eventually increase if they don’t have the capacity to meet the challenges of an aging population,” he said.

The public sector’s difficulty in raising sufficient funds to meet healthcare needs opens up opportunities for the private sector to enter and expand its presence, the researcher pointed out.

“This is already happening in many places around the world, and it could also be a vector of inequality. Ultimately, only those who can afford it will have access to private health care,” Rocha said.

Another vector of social inequality in the country is climate change, which has a more direct impact on poor people, who don’t have access to health care, the researcher stressed.

For more information about FAPESP Week Illinois, visit: https://fapesp.br/week/2024/illinois.

 

Rice team demonstrates miniature brain stimulator in humans

Tiny skull implant places Rice lab at the forefront of neurotech research

RICE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

RICE UNIVERSITY’S JACOB ROBINSON AND HIS TEAM OF RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED THE SMALLEST IMPLANTABLE BRAIN STIMULATOR DEMONSTRATED IN A HUMAN PATIENT THAT COULD REVOLUTIONIZE TREATMENT FOR DRUG-RESISTANT DEPRESSION AND OTHER PSYCHIATRIC OR NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS.

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CREDIT: PHOTO BY JEFF FITLOW/RICE UNIVERSITY

HOUSTON – (April 12, 2024) – Rice University engineers have developed the smallest implantable brain stimulator demonstrated in a human patient. Thanks to pioneering magnetoelectric power transfer technology, the pea-sized device developed in the Rice lab of Jacob Robinson in collaboration with Motif Neurotech and clinicians Dr. Sameer Sheth and Dr. Sunil Sheth can be powered wirelessly via an external transmitter and used to stimulate the brain through the dura ⎯ the protective membrane attached to the bottom of the skull.

The device, known as the Digitally programmable Over-brain Therapeutic (DOT), could revolutionize treatment for drug-resistant depression and other psychiatric or neurological disorders by providing a therapeutic alternative that offers greater patient autonomy and accessibility than current neurostimulation-based therapies and is less invasive than other brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

“In this paper we show that our device, the size of a pea, can activate the motor cortex, which results in the patient moving their hand,” said Robinson, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of bioengineering at Rice. “In the future, we can place the implant above other parts of the brain, like the prefrontal cortex, where we expect to improve executive functioning in people with depression or other disorders.”

Existing implantable technologies for brain stimulation are powered by relatively large batteries that need to be placed under the skin elsewhere in the body and connected to the stimulating device via long wires. Such design limitations require more surgery and subject the individual to a greater burden of hardware implantation, risks of wire breakage or failure and the need for future battery replacement surgeries.

“We eliminated the need for a battery by wirelessly powering the device using an external transmitter,” explained Joshua Woods, an electrical engineering graduate student in the Robinson lab and lead author on the study published in Science Advances. Amanda Singer, a former graduate student in Rice’s applied physics program who is now at Motif Neurotech, is also a lead author.

The technology relies on a material that converts magnetic fields into electrical pulses. This conversion process is very efficient at small scales and has good misalignment tolerance, meaning it does not require complex or minute maneuvering to activate and control. The device has a width of 9 millimeters and can deliver 14.5 volts of stimulation.

“Our implant gets all of its energy through this magnetoelectric effect,” said Robinson, who is founder and CEO of Motif, a startup formed through the Rice Biotech Launch Pad that is working to bring the device to market."  

Motif is one of several neurotech companies that are probing the potential of BCIs to revolutionize treatments for neurological disorders.

“Neurostimulation is key to enabling therapies in the mental health space where drug side effects and a lack of efficacy leave many people without adequate treatment options,” Robinson said.

The researchers tested the device temporarily in a human patient, using it to stimulate the motor cortex ⎯ the part of the brain responsible for movement ⎯ and generating a hand movement response. They next showed the device interfaces with the brain stably for a 30-day duration in pigs.

“This has not been done before because the quality and strength of the signal needed to stimulate the brain through the dura were previously impossible with wireless power transfer for implants this small,” Woods said.

Robinson envisions the technology being used from the comfort of one’s home. A physician would prescribe the treatment and provide guidelines for using the device, but patients would retain complete control over how the treatment is administered.

“Back home, the patient would put on their hat or wearable to power and communicate with the implant, push ‘go’ on their iPhone or their smartwatch and then the electrical stimulation from that implant would activate a neuronal network inside the brain,” Robinson said.

Implantation would require a minimally invasive 30-minute procedure that would place the device in the bone over the brain. Both the implant and the incision would be virtually invisible, and the patient would go home the same day.

“When you think about a pacemaker, it’s a very routine part of cardiac care,” said Sheth, professor and vice-chair of research, McNair Scholar and Cullen Foundation Endowed Chair of Neurosurgery at the Baylor College of Medicine. “In neurological and psychiatric disorders, the equivalent is deep brain stimulation (DBS), which sounds scary and invasive. DBS is actually quite a safe procedure, but it’s still brain surgery, and its perceived risk will place a very low ceiling on the number of people who are willing to accept it and may benefit from it. Here’s where technologies like this come in. A 30-minute minor procedure that is little more than skin surgery, done in an outpatient surgery center, is much more likely to be tolerated than DBS. So if we can show that it is about as effective as more invasive alternatives, this therapy will likely make a much larger impact on mental health.”

For some conditions, epilepsy for example, the device may need to be on permanently or most of the time, but for disorders such as depression and OCD, a regimen of just a few minutes of stimulation per day could suffice to bring about the desired changes in the functioning of the targeted neuronal network.

In terms of next steps, Robinson said that on the research side he is “really interested in the idea of creating networks of implants and creating implants that can stimulate and record, so that they can provide adaptive personalized therapies based on your own brain signatures.” From the therapeutic development standpoint, Motif Neurotech is in the process of seeking FDA approval for a long-term clinical trial in humans. Patients and caregivers can sign up on the Motif Neurotech website to learn when and where these trials will begin.

The work was supported in part by The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, the McNair Medical Institute, DARPA and the National Science Foundation.

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Rice University engineers have developed the first miniaturized brain stimulator shown to work in a human patient.

CREDIT

(Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

Peer-reviewed paper:

Miniature battery-free epidural cortical stimulators | Science Advances | DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adn0858

Authors: Joshua Woods, Amanda Singer, Fatima Alrashdan, Wendy Tan, Chufeng Tan, Sunil Sheth, Sameer Sheth and Jacob Robinson

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn0858

Video is available at:

https://youtu.be/jhAEpAJGKSE
(Video by Brandon Martin/Rice University)

Image downloads:

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2024/04/240213_Implant_Fitlow_152-5b1ea18ebb9fdfc8.jpg
CAPTION: Rice University’s Jacob Robinson and his team of researchers have developed the smallest implantable brain stimulator demonstrated in a human patient that could revolutionize treatment for drug-resistant depression and other psychiatric or neurological disorders. (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2024/04/JWF_8628-39b4feadc43c1c91.jpg
CAPTION: Joshua Woods (from left), Jacob Robinson and Fatima Alrashdan (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2024/04/JWF_8453-a3f45ee916b1ce90.jpg
CAPTION: Rice University engineers have developed the first miniaturized brain stimulator shown to work in a human patient. (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

Box Link:
https://rice.box.com/s/il8b8lxzkekxxodzb1peqpjwcpv97a3c

Links:

Robinson lab: www.robinsonlab.com

Sheth lab: https://www.bcm.edu/research/faculty-labs/functional-and-cognitive-neurophysiology-laboratory

Motif Neurotech: www.motifneuro.tech

Rice Neuroengineering Initiative: neuroengineering.rice.edu

Rice Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: eceweb.rice.edu

Rice Department of Bioengineering: https://bioengineering.rice.edu/

George R. Brown School of Engineering: engineering.rice.edu

About Rice:

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of architecture, business, continuing studies, engineering, humanities, music, natural sciences and social sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 4,574 undergraduates and 3,982 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction, No. 2 for best-run colleges and No. 12 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adn0858 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Miniature battery-free epidural cortical stimulators

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2024

COI STATEMENT

J.T.R., A.L.S., Sunil A. Sheth, Sameer A. Sheth, and J.E.W. receive monetary and/or equity compensation from Motif Neurotech. Sameer A. Sheth has consulting agreements with Zimmer Biomet, Boston Scientific, Koh Young, Neuropace, Varian, and Sensoria Therapeutics. Sunil A. Sheth has consulting agreements with Viz.AI, Penumbra, and Imperative Care as well as grant funding from Viz.AI and NIH. The terms of these arrangements have been reviewed and approved by Rice University, UTHealth, and Baylor college of Medicine in accordance with their policies on conflict of interest in research. J.T.R., F.A., J.E.W., and A.L.S. are coinventors on a provisional patent application filed by William Marsh Rice University (no. 18336787, filed 16 June 2023). The other authors declare that they have no competing interests.