I-Corps: Clinical Grade Microelectromechanical Neurostimulators

I-Corps：临床级微机电神经刺激器

• 批准号: 1244990
• 负责人: Kensall Wise
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-07-01 至 2013-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1244990&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Clinical; Grade; Microelectromechanical; Neurostimulators

Companies dealing with profound hearing loss, chronic pain, Parkinson's disease, and epilepsy must rely on expensive and technologically-limited hand-assembled electrode arrays in their neurostimulators. These devices are costly due to low throughput and yield; the complexity is limited by what can be achieved with the human hand; and quality assurance is difficult to maintain in the presence of human error. By using lithographically-based technology for the automated manufacturing of arrays, this project has the potential to significantly reduce their cost while improving their reproducibility and performance. The microelectromechanical arrays has the potential to enable medical device manufacturers to increase the number of electrodes on their leads by 5X, reduce the size of the electrodes by greater than 30X, reduce the overall size of the leads by 92%, and easily define the mechanical properties of the arrays. And by utilizing this technology to eventually add position sensing and actuation, the team believes that the insertion of the arrays can be largely automated, reducing surgical placement time and cost while allowing better placement and improved performance.There is a rise in the incidence of neurological diseases and disorders in the US. Conditions such as hearing loss, Parkinson's disease, and epilepsy are more prevalent now than ever, and pharmaceutical solutions are lacking in both effectiveness and safety. Neurostimulation implants have been developed to treat such conditions, however, their performance and costs are lacking, due to hand-assembly manufacturing. In the case of hearing loss, over 150,000 cochlear prosthetics have been implanted worldwide to date; however, over 250 million people worldwide are estimated to be disabled due to hearing loss. Many of these people are in developing countries and lack the funds necessary to take advantage of current prostheses, both due to the cost of the systems themselves and due to the cost of the associated surgery. By using lithographically-based technology for the neurostimulation arrays, the team has the potential to significantly reduce their cost while improving their surgical safety and performance. The enabling technology will also promote the creation of new neurostimulation devices (e.g., for blindness and paralysis) whose size and complexity is not currently achievable with hand-assembly. The technology being proposed promised to result in a significant leap forward in the practical treatment of neurological disorders and diseases on a worldwide scale and thus possesses the potential for significant impact.

处理严重听力损失、慢性疼痛、帕金森病和癫痫的公司必须在其神经刺激器中依赖昂贵且技术有限的手工组装电极阵列。这些设备由于低吞吐量和产量而成本高昂;复杂性受到人手所能实现的限制;并且在存在人为错误的情况下难以保持质量保证。通过使用基于光刻技术的阵列自动化制造，该项目有可能显着降低其成本，同时提高其再现性和性能。微机电阵列有可能使医疗设备制造商能够将其引线上的电极数量增加5倍，将电极的尺寸减小30倍以上，将引线的总体尺寸减小92%，并轻松定义阵列的机械性能。通过利用这项技术最终增加位置传感和驱动，该团队认为，阵列的插入可以在很大程度上实现自动化，减少手术放置时间和成本，同时允许更好的放置和改善性能。在美国，神经疾病和障碍的发病率有所上升。听力损失、帕金森病和癫痫等疾病现在比以往任何时候都更加普遍，而药物解决方案缺乏有效性和安全性。已经开发了神经刺激植入物来治疗这种病症，然而，由于手工组装制造，它们的性能和成本是缺乏的。在听力损失的情况下，迄今为止，全世界已植入超过15万个人工耳蜗;然而，据估计，全世界有超过2.5亿人因听力损失而残疾。其中许多人生活在发展中国家，由于系统本身的成本和相关手术的成本，他们缺乏利用现有假体所需的资金。通过将光刻技术用于神经刺激阵列，该团队有可能显着降低成本，同时提高手术安全性和性能。使能技术还将促进新的神经刺激设备的创建（例如，用于失明和瘫痪），其尺寸和复杂性目前不能用手工组装实现。拟议的技术有望在世界范围内实现神经紊乱和疾病的实际治疗方面的重大飞跃，因此具有产生重大影响的潜力。