Drug-loaded brain electrode could prevent seizures

[crazynutsx]

 

 

Talk about intelligent design: a new polymer-covered electrode has the potential to monitor and deliver drugs to out-of-sync brain cells. If trials in animals are successful, it could one day help people to control epilepsy.

 

Neuroscientists implant microelectrode arrays in brains to eavesdrop on – and sometimes influence – the electrical activity of neurons. Why not chemically influence the brain alongside this electrical manipulation, thought Xinyan Tracy Cui at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and her colleagues.

 

So the team coated microelectrodes with an electrically conductive polypyrrole film. Then they loaded pockets within the film with different drugs and neurotransmitters such as glutamate, GABA and dopamine, and attached the arrays to samples of rat brain tissue.

 

Applying an electrical current to the polymer caused it to change shape and release its drug cargo, which then acted on surrounding cells. Cui is currently working on replicating this demonstration in living rodents

[Ringer]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but I don't see whats different about this approach. Placing electrodes on neurons and creating an action potential would already cause them to release the neurotransmitters in question. If the application is to release them independently of presynaptic neuron, why not just administer the drug.