“They” are the digital technology advances like implanted deep brain stimulators (essentially brain pacemakers) that ease symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, OCD, Tourette’s syndrome, major depression, dementia and a growing list of other neurological disorders, according to an article published today in Psychology Today.
Scientists are increasingly using digital brain implants as brain-computer interfaces that enhance the lives of millions of Americans with brain diseases, concussions and other brain injuries that result in the death of brain cells. In layman terms, the implants use electrical stimulation that excites or “turbocharges” remaining neurons so that they can take over functions of brain cells that have died. As the digital age continues to blossom, devices and their memory chips are becoming smaller, faster and more efficient.
Most advances are not as extreme as the exoskeleton that allowed long-paralyzed Juliano Pinto, dressed in the bright green and yellow of his native Brazil, to stand on a soccer field in a cavernous stadium filled with 63,000 fans and hundreds of millions of television viewers around the world watching him, and symbolically kick off the 2014 World Cup with a gentle swing from his paralyzed leg. Increasingly, neurosurgeons are using tiny implants, often invisible post surgery, to directly access the brain and improve its function(s).
Neural prostheses
Today, there are three booming areas of scientific innovation aimed at increasing brain function in the disabled and mentally impaired. A wave of technological advances in digital processing is helping doctors and scientists restore lost brain functions. Beyond easing the symptoms of neurological disorders like those listed in the first paragraph, researchers at Wake Forest University have developed a computer chip they hope will soon be able to restore human memory when implanted into a damaged hippocampus (a temporal lobe structure responsible for new memory formation). Currently, researchers are seeing impressive results using the microchips in rat brains.
Advance #2 Stem cell therapy
Other neuroscientists, seeking to replace damaged brain cells as opposed to compensating for neuron death, want to grow new brain and spinal cord cells to replace those that have been lost. Until recently it was thought that dead and dying brain cells could not be replaced. However the discovery that all humans grow a limited number of new brain cells during a lifetime has sparked new stem cell research. Researchers hope to grow a reserve of stem cells that would replace neurons within the hippocampus that die from aging and injury.
New cells grow in adult brains in the same way as embryonic brains: from stem cells. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, which, upon receiving appropriate molecular signals, transform into differentiated nerve cells that then begin to function as full-fledged neurons. To that end, Dr. Toshiya Osanai and colleagues at Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine have shown that injecting stem cells into animal brains helped restore motor function lost to TBI. Meanwhile, neuroscientists at Harvard and Stanford have made progress with stem cell treatments in animals. Even more optimistic, they are currently holding clinical trials of stem cell implants in human Parkinson sufferers.
Advance #3 Kick starting neural regeneration
All things equal, stem cell implants are preferable to neural prosthesis since they do not require accompanying electronics or batteries, and stem cells replace neurons, rather than assigning remaining neurons double duty. However, scientists are also making progress in kick-starting neural regeneration.
To that end, researchers working under Dr. Vijay Tiwari at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany have discovered a gene, NeuroD1. When “switched on,” NeuroD1 triggers neurogenesis (proliferation of new brain cells) in adult brains. Along the same line, other researchers discovered that “up regulation” of the gene, GADD45b also turns on new cell growth in the brain. Some say this line of research may prove the less invasive process since natural cell growth occurs. Essentially, the process amounts to a regeneration of the brain. Researchers know manipulating DNA is a key element to turning off DNA (gene) expression which would promote brain aging; with carefully measured increases, scientists believe the reverse occurs, that uptakes (of e.g. NeuroD1) can slow and even reverse the brain’s aging process.
While advanced digital neural implants and other electronic neural prostheses hold the most immediate promise for relieving patients of the dreaded symptoms of neurological disorders, scientists are slowly cracking genetic codes through stem cell research and DNA in hopes of being able to replace and regenerate vital cells that might extend life and enhance the quality of life for millions.
