News

Mimicking Success The establishment of the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems [see article, p1], is a great success for the field of neurotechnology. The significance of the new center extends well beyond the $17 million initial award from the NSF. To begin with, the effort represents a strong endorsement of biomimetic approaches to understanding, treating, and eventually re-engineering the nervous system.

Occipital Nerve Stimulation Targets Migraine Market The neurotechnology market for treating chronic migraine and other forms of headache pain has moved closer to commercial viability as several research institutions and manufacturers in the U.S. and Europe have made progress in occipital nerve stimulation (ONS). The market in many ways seems to mirror the advent of the market for spinal cord stimul…

Neural Electronics Vendors Show Wares at Society for Neuroscience Meeting More than 28,000 neuroscience researchers, clinicians, and technologists attended the 31st annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego last month. The scientific program, themed “Unraveling the Mysteries, Delivering the Cures,” lived up to its billing, with several neuroscience pioneers and Nobel laureates delivering presentations.

Percutaneous Stimulation a Potential Incontinence Option , senior technical editor Urinary incontinence is a large unmet medical need with debilitating effects. The condition affects an estimated 13 to 15 million Americans, and almost half of the persons diagnosed with urinary incontinence are affected . Urge incontinence is the involuntary loss of urine accompanied void, and is differentiated from stress incontinence.

New Engineering Center Highlights Biomimetic Systems One of the most significant trends in the neurotechnology field in recent years has been the development of “biomimetic” electronic systems that emulate the function of biological neural systems. Such an approach not only offers the promise of building a new generation of neural prostheses, neurosensors, and other devices, it also opens the possi…

Looking Back, Looking Forward As 2003 comes to an end, it’s useful to look back on the events of the last year to see what progress we’ve made. In the process, this editor could not resist the temptation to single out a few individuals and organizations for special recognition. The result is the somewhat impromptu “Gold Electrode” Awards (that just sounded better than “Iridium Electrode Awards”), which are itemized in the article to the right.

Putting Thought into Action The enormous media attention acquired last month University for his paper on a monkey’s cortical control of a robot arm is both confounding and promising (see article on thought-controlled devices, p1). Anyone who’s been following the field of brain-computer interfaces knows that several research institutions, including teams at Caltech, Brown, Arizona State, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and elsewhere have been conducting similar experiments for years.

A Commercialization Message What’s it going to take to bring commercial success to the neurotechnology industry? This is a question that many in this field, including this publication’s editors, have pondered for some time. Now a relative newcomer to the field, Samuel Hall, has devoted a considerable amount of effort to answering the question [see article, p1]. Hall, who works as a financial analys…

Analyst Probes Commercialization of Neuroprostheses A financial analyst with Citigroup’s SmithBarney unit has authored a detailed report that examines the factors impeding commercial development of neural prostheses. The analyst, Sam Hall, originally wrote the report as a thesis while he was a molecular biology student at Princeton University. The publication is highly critical of government polici…

Neurotech Reports to Publish Neurotechnology Desk Reference in 2004 Neurotech Reports, the publisher of Neurotech Business Report, will distribute a Neurotechnology Desk Reference in 2004 that lists products and vendors and vendors in several key areas of neurostimulation and neurodiagnostics devices. The new publication, with target circulation of 16,000 clinicians specializing in neurotechnology devices, will be the first advertiser supported publication produced .