The university has launched the centre to create the next generation of neurotechnology devices to help treat a range of brain health conditions.
The University of Nottingham has launched The Centre for Neurotechnology, Neuromodulation and Neurotherapeutics to create the next generation of neurotechnology devices to help diagnose, manage and treat a range of brain health conditions.
Neurotechnology offers an effective and non-invasive way to effectively diagnose and treat a range of conditions, ranging from Tourette’s and Parkinson’s disease, to dementia, depression and psychosis. It encompasses a range of technologies that can directly interact with the nervous system either to modulate its activity or to interface with the brain.
“Innovation in healthcare for brain health conditions is sorely needed in order to widen access to safe and effective treatments,” said the centre’s director Stephen Jackson.
Help for Tourette’s
A wrist device to help control tics in people with Tourette’s is currently in development, after scientists demonstrated that delivering repetitive trains of electrical stimulation to the median nerve (MNS) at the wrist in order to entrain rhythmic electrical brain activity reduces the amount and severity of tics in people with Tourette’s syndrome.
This electrical wrist stimulation approach is now being trialled in people with Parkinson’s in a two-year study funded by Parkinson’s UK.
Centre scientists have also been awarded a five-year Medical Research Council programme grant from UK Research and Innovation, to develop a novel closed-loop neuromodulation approach to treating serious mental health disorders such as major depression, psychosis, and movement disorders such as Tourette’s syndrome.
One aspect of this research programme will be to develop non-invasive alternatives to deep brain stimulation based upon low-intensity ultrasound stimulation.
The roll out of a wearable OPM-MEG brain imaging system is also being developed. The wearable brain scanner is based on quantum technology and uses small sensors which are incorporated into a lightweight helmet to measure the magnetic fields generated by brain activity. The system can be adapted to fit any age group, including very young children.
