The field of optogenetics, employing genetically encoded switches that turn neurons on or off with light, has taken another innovation into a higher level. Recently, scientists have created "flexible, implantable, wireless devices that can activate and potentially block pain signals in the body before they make it to the brain".
Published in the Nature Biotechnology journal, researchers from Washington University of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, and the University of Illinois have initiated a certain wireless technology where flexible and wireless devices can be implanted under the skin - without the need for batteries.
According to Medical News Today, the new wireless devices have been used to activate pain among genetically-engineered mice. Using microLED lights that activate specific nerve cells among animals, the team needed to attach the animals to wires, limiting their movability.
Thus, researchers said that "this technology can be used to block pain". They remain hopeful that this discovery, especially once further enhanced, the implants can be eventually used in different areas of the body to "potentially block pain that is not treatable with other therapies".
Science Daily also included in its report that the experiment would have been very difficult with older optogenetic devices, which are tethered to a power source and can inhibit the movement of the mice.
"Our eventual goal is to use this technology to treat pain in very specific locations by providing a kind of 'switch' to turn off the pain signals long before they reach the brain," researcher Prof. Robert W. Gereau IV, from the Washington University Pain Center.
"We demonstrate the power of this technology by modulating peripheral and spinal pain circuitry, providing evidence for the potential widespread use of these devices in research and future clinical applications of optogenetics outside the brain," the researchers stated when asked to comment on their findings.
