If there were any brains functioning at all in the stroke medical world they would immediately see the possibilities of hacking this to stop the errant electrical signals causing spasticity. But no, no one in stroke seems to have two functioning brain cells to rub together
Healing spark: Hack body electricity to replace drugs
(Image: Angus Greig)
We’re learning to speak the electrical language of the body – and using it to develop treatments for diseases from arthritis to diabetes
FOR Goran Ostovich*, just driving his delivery van was a daily agony. The painful swelling in his hands, wrists and elbows made it nearly impossible to grip and turn the wheel – never mind loading and unloading the produce his van carried. The drugs that he had taken for years to alleviate his rheumatoid arthritis didn’t help much. He had reluctantly abandoned his favourite sport, ping pong. He stopped working. The final cruelty was when he could no longer lift his young children or play with them.
It was then that Ostovich volunteered for a last resort treatment: he had a small computer implanted in his neck that would instruct his immune cells to stand down.
Ostovich’s implant is a harbinger of a revolution in the pharmaceutical industry. Researchers are waking up to the idea that the electrical language of nerves might be spoken more widely in the body than anyone thought, playing a pivotal role in coordinating the actions of our organs, glands and cells. It may even be possible to use the nervous system to coax the body into healing itself in ways we never dreamed of.
The pharmaceutical industry is on the case, and a spate of projects is under way around the world to map the exact circuits that allow the nervous system to intervene when things go wrong in the body. Autoimmune diseases, asthma, diabetes and gastric conditions are just a few of the …
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