NASA Ames Research Center scientist and neurosurgeon Russell J. Andrews presented the advances that he and his colleagues have made on developing a deep brain stimulation device equipped with carbon nanofiber pads at the International Neuromodulation Society 12th World Congress on June 8."People are sticking electrodes all over the place in the brain for everything from obesity to depression to Tourette's without nearly as successful results," Andrews told Tech Times. "It's kind of sad when people have a hammer and they start thinking that every disease is a nail just because Parkinson's was kind of a nail and this hammer worked pretty well." And now, nanotechnology can help improve DBS. "It's a pretty simple physical concept - when you get down to measuring things like molecules, if your detector is closer to the size of what you're measuring, the precision and sensitivity are much greater," Andrews explains. "It's really a matter of reducing the size to get down to the biological level." "We'd like to be able to correct problems in the brain, not just relieve the symptoms," he says. Andrews expects their to be clinical trials within five years.
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