A Different Kind of Medication- Impulses Instead of Pills

Our bodies have a complex and unique language. Different parts of our body communicate with one another through electrical impulses. Through this, researchers are hoping to create a new way of treating diseases- through electroceuticals. Such a device (similar to a microchip) would listen to the body's electrical impulses and deliver its own on targeted neural circuits that regulate the body's organ systems and functions. Electroceuticals would hone in on neurons in a specific circuit and treat a disease by modulating action potentials and neural signaling that flow through the neurons. Imagine this device being able to coax insulin from cells for diabetics, or treating hypertension by correcting balances in smooth-muscle tone!

Such an interesting part of this growing technology that has the potential to help many lives is that it does not depend on just one focus of study. To make it work, it would require biomedical engineers, disease biologists, neuroscientists, electrical engineers, nanotechnologist, etc. Such teamwork could change the way we look at medicine today; instead of being prescribed pills, you would be administered an electroceutical to target a circuit to help your condition. This technology would help us to understand our body's and brain's language, a great development in biomedical technology.


http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v496/n7444/full/496159a.html