Wireless magnetothermal deep brain stimulation

By Ritchie Chen, Gabriela Romero, M. G. Christiansen, Alan C. Mohr, Polina Anikeeva. Science, 2015

606 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Exciting nerve cells deep inside the brain Current techniques to stimulate regions inside the brain need a permanently implanted wire or an optical fiber. Working in mice, Chen et al. developed a method to overcome this problem (see the Perspective by Temel and Jahanshahi). They introduced heat-sensitive capsaicin receptors into nerve cells and then injected magnetic nanoparticles into specific brain regions. The nanoparticles could be heated by external alternating magnetic fields, which activated the ion channel–expressing neurons. Thus, cellular signaling deep inside the brain can be controlled remotely without permanent implants. Science, this issue p. 1477; see also p. 1418 A minimally invasive method allows remote neuronal excitation through the activation of a heat-sensitive receptor by magnetic nanoparticles. [Also see Perspective by Temel and Jahanshahi] Wireless deep brain stimulation of well-defined neuronal populations could facilitate the study of intact brain circuits and the treatment of neurological disorders. Here, we demonstrate minimally invasive and remote neural excitation through the activation of the heat-sensitive capsaicin receptor TRPV1 by magnetic nanoparticles. When exposed to alternating magnetic fields, the nanoparticles dissipate heat generated by hysteresis, triggering widespread and reversible firing of TRPV1+ neurons. Wireless magnetothermal stimulation in the ventral tegmental area of mice evoked excitation in subpopulations of neurons in the targeted brain region and in structures receiving excitatory projections. The nanoparticles persisted in the brain for over a month, allowing for chronic stimulation without the need for implants and connectors.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Neurology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/021e41812f6aeee8f219da6658e67ff5beb38e3e

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In Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

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Citations in the corpus

Noninvasive deep brain stimulation via temporally interfering electric fields (2017, positive): “…immediate early gene c-fos as a marker of neural activity, as has been used previously to gauge the focality of brain stimulation, since c-fos functions in the mouse cortex and hippocampus as an indicator of activated neurons (Chen et al., 2015; Dragunow and Robertson 1987; Reijmers et al., 2007).”
Memory Engram Cells Have Come of Age. (2015, positive): “…in a not so distant future, we may even be able to combine the knowledge obtained by these studies with minimally invasive technologies such as wireless optogenetics (Kim et al. 2013) and magnetogenetics (Chen et al. 2015) to develop novel therapeutic methods for a variety of brain disorders.”
Thermal transients excite neurons through universal intramembrane mechano-electrical effects (2017, background): “…that the INS phenomenon is mediated by temperature transients induced by IR-absorption 15–17 ; such transients can alternatively be induced using other forms of photo-absorption 18–20 , or potentially by any other physical form of thermal neuro-stimulation that can be driven rapidly enough 21,22 .”