Story Categorie: Technology

The vagus nerve is one of the biggest cranial nerves. It interconnects the brain with almost all internal organs, including the heart, the respiratory tract, the kidney, and the digestive tract. It mediates important reflexes for autonomic functions and modulates a wide range of body functions, making it an attractive target for bioelectronic interventions. On …

The long and winding road towards specific vagus nerve modulation Read More »

About half of the patients afflicted by a stroke permanently suffer from chronic deficits in arm and hand movements. These deficits are not ameliorated by classical physiotherapy and severely affect quality of life. New therapies are urgently needed. We recently reported on an NIH project with Professor Ojemann from the University of Washington at Seattle, …

One more stroke project granted by the NIH! Read More »

For a project recently accepted for funding by the NIH, CorTec will supply novel electrodes to help people regain sensation from missing limbs.   Losing a limb not only severely impairs our motor abilities, but also significantly impairs our level of independence. While prostheses can help to regain mobility, one of their biggest shortcomings is …

Getting back that feeling. Read More »

Electrically stimulating the spinal cord can be an effective therapy for different kinds of treatment-resistant chronic pain. The exact mechanisms through which the stimulation suppresses pain are still not fully understood. In most systems currently used in patients, the electrodes are placed epidurally into the spinal cord canal. There is evidence that the stimulation effects …

A novel wireless research device for chronic pain relief Read More »

Delivering electrical currents to nerves can not only serve to stimulate them, by inducing action potentials that are carried along the nerve and finally activate the end organ (e.g., a muscle). Certain stimulation patterns can also suppress nerve activity, leading to an inhibitory effect on the respective end organs. This is of specific interest for …

PEDOT coating paired with low frequency alternating currents enables physiological nerve blocks Read More »

CorTec’s cuff electrodes have proven extremely helpful as interfaces for electrically interacting with the peripheral nervous system. The range of possible applications is vast. Cuff sizes, shapes and contact arrangements can be tailored to the specific target nerves, and the electrodes can both, stimulate and record. Nerve stimulation is often used for activating muscles, e.g. …

A software tool for optimizing peripheral motor stimulation Read More »

Our urinary bladders have to fulfil two very different functions: On the one hand, they need to reliably collect urine throughout the day without any unintentional leakage. On the other hand, they need to empty as completely as possible during urination. To that end, the muscles involved in those two processes need to perform opposite …

Bladders need flexibility Read More »