Monthly Archives: March 2015

Future hardware improvements in implantable hearing devices

Posted on 30/03/2015 by | Leave a comment
Damaged situation of the middle and inner ear; hair cells are damaged or non-existent, nerve cells are not fully developed or do not reach the cochlea [3].

Damaged situation of the middle and inner ear; hair cells are damaged or non-existent, nerve cells are not fully developed or do not reach the cochlea [3].

In this essay, by Ide Swager, MSc student in bioelectronics, an overview of current and future developments in implantable hearing devices is presented. It has been written as part of the course Introduction to Microelectronics for the M.Sc. track Microelectronics of the faculty Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science of Delft University of Technology. A brief version of the auditory anatomy is included to clarify the causes of deafness. After elaborating on the current devices available and the basic working principle, future trends are explored. These include Neural Response Telemetry (NRT), combined Acoustic and Electric Stimulation (EAS) and binaural devices.

Read the full essay here: http://elca.et.tudelft.nl/~wout/tmp/iswager_essay.pdf

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Posted in Education, Electronics, General, Understanding the Brain

Cochlear implant development going at a rapid pace (in Dutch)

Posted on 27/03/2015 by | Leave a comment

Uit “De Audiciens”, februari 2015: “CI’s (cochleaire implantaten, Red.) volop in ontwikkeling.

Het is een traditie, de refereeravond van KNO/Centrum voor Audiologie en Hoorimplantaten (CAHIL) in het LUMC op de tweede donderdag van het jaar.

Ook op 8 januari 2015 zit de collegezaal weer vol. Het is dan ook een bijeenkomst waar een aantal disciplines uit de hoorbranche samenkomen. KNO-artsen, audiologen, akoepedisten, audiciens, fabrikanten en anderen luisteren naar voordrachten die inzicht geven in nieuwe ontwikkelingen op audiologisch gebied.

De avond wordt geopend door prof. dr. ir. J.H.M. Frijns, hoofd CAHIL. (…) In het kader van de Medical Delta (een samenwerkingsverband tussen het Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, de TU Delft en het LUMC in Leiden voor de ontwikkeling van medische technologie) is er een presentatie van Johan de Vos die als arts-onderzoeker KNO onderzoek verricht naar nieuwe technologie voor cochleaire implantaten. Onder begeleiding van Wouter Serdijn en Paddy French hebben drie promovendi van de TU een meetversterker (Cees Jeroen Bes), een elektrode ontwerp (Nishant Lawant) en een stimulatorchip (Wannaya Ngamkham) ontwikkeld. Deze technologie wordt onder leiding van Johan Frijns en Jeroen Briaire in het LUMC geimplanteerd en getest door Johan de Vos. Tevens ontwikkelt het LUMC nieuwe meetmethodes voor het terugmeten van de respons van de gehoorzenuw (Dick Biesheuvel).”

Lees meer hier.

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Posted in General

We cured several mice from epilepsy!

Posted on 18/03/2015 by | Leave a comment

The cerebellum might be able to stop epileptic seizures

A single short-lasting (30-300 ms) optogenetic stimulation of the cerebellum (the small brains) abruptly stopped generalized spike-wave discharges (GSWDs) as occur, e.g., in absence epileptic seizures, even when applied unilaterally. Using a closed-loop system absence seizures were detected and stopped within 500 ms.

If you want to read more about the neuroscientific aspects, click here. If you want to read more about the epilepsy detector we developed, click here.

We are now working on our next mission: to reliably detect other forms of epileptic seizures and to study cerebellar nuclei further and their potential therapeutic benefit for controlling other types of generalized epilepsies.

Exciting times ahead, if you ask me, and not only for mice.

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Posted in Brain-Machine Interfaces, Electronics, General, Neurostimulation and Neuromodulation, Understanding the Brain

Cerebellar output controls generalized spike-and-wave discharge occurrence

Posted on 15/03/2015 by | Leave a comment

Cerebellar output controls generalized spike-and-wave discharge occurrence.

Kros L, Eelkman Rooda OH, Spanke JK, Alva P, van Dongen MN, Karapatis A, Tolner EA, Strydis C, Davey N, Winkelman BH, Negrello M, Serdijn WA, Steuber V, van den Maagdenberg AM, De Zeeuw CI, Hoebeek FE.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

Disrupting thalamocortical activity patterns has proven to be a promising approach to stop generalized spike-and-wave discharges (GSWDs) characteristic of absence seizures. Here, we investigated to what extent modulation of neuronal firing in cerebellar nuclei (CN), which are anatomically in an advantageous position to disrupt cortical oscillations through their innervation of a wide variety of thalamic nuclei, is effective in controlling absence seizures.

METHODS:

Two unrelated mouse models of generalized absence seizures were used; the natural mutant tottering, which is characterized by a missense mutation in Cacna1a, and inbred C3H/HeOuJ. While simultaneously recording single CN neuron activity and electrocorticogram (ECoG) in awake animals, we investigated to what extent pharmacologically increased or decreased CN neuron activity could modulate GSWD occurrence and short-lasting on-demand CN stimulation could disrupt epileptic seizures.

RESULTS:

We found that a subset of CN neurons shows phase-locked oscillatory firing during GSWDs and that manipulating this activity modulates GSWD occurrence. Inhibiting CN neuron action potential firing by local application of the GABAA -agonist muscimol increased GSWD occurrence up to 37-fold, whereas increasing the frequency and regularity of CN neuron firing with the use of gabazine decimated its occurrence. A single short-lasting (30-300 ms) optogenetic stimulation of CN neuron activity abruptly stopped GSWDs, even when applied unilaterally. Using a closed-loop system GSWDs were detected and stopped within 500 ms.

INTERPRETATION:

CN neurons are potent modulators of pathological oscillations in thalamocortical network activity during absence seizures and their potential therapeutic benefit for controlling other types of generalized epilepsies should be evaluated.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

© 2015 American Neurological Association.

PMID: 25762286
[PubMed – as supplied by publisher]

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Posted in General, Neurostimulation and Neuromodulation, Understanding the Brain

How to optimize the antenna-electronics interface

Posted on 13/03/2015 by | Leave a comment
Autonomous Wireless ECG Sensor Node by Andre Mansano and Yongjia Li

Autonomous Wireless ECG Sensor Node by Andre Mansano and Yongjia Li

During the design process of a wireless system, the antenna and electronic circuit designers sometimes are operating independently from each other and considered to belong to separate disciplines. Both designers agree upon a common characteristic impedance (Z0) of the antenna electronics interface and subsequently optimize their part of the system. The electronic circuit often requires an impedance transformation network while the antenna usually is directly matched to the characteristic impedance of a transmission line to avoid propagation effects in the interface. Traditionally, this characteristic impedance is commonly assumed to be 50 Ω, without any further discussion. Although this standardization may be convenient from a measurement point of view, it is a rather uncomfortable assumption to make as it clearly cannot be the optimum impedance for all design challenges when for example considering noise performance, efficiency or antenna size.

By co-designing the antenna-electronics interface, both disciplines share a common optimization target and can agree on an alternative interface impedance to optimize the overall system performance for a specific application. The choice of interface impedance plays a crucial role in the optimization of antenna systems in the receiving mode, which is the topic addressed in this brief.

Read more in this paper by Mark Stoopman and Yao Liu here.

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Posted in General

Rewiring the brain – creating artificial vision

Posted on 11/03/2015 by | Leave a comment
creating artificial vision

creating artificial vision

For our course “Introduction in Microelectronics” MSc student Lucas van Dijk wrote an inspiring essay about how you can either restore vision for the blind or create enhanced vision for people that see normally.

The essay can be found here.

The abstract reads: “The current state of visual prostheses progresses rapidly. In this essay three approaches to a visual prosthesis are discussed: an epiretinal implant, a visual prosthesis which stimulates the optic nerve, and a visual prosthesis which stimulates the lateral geniculate nucleus. While the epiretinal implants are currently the most advanced visual prostheses available, I think
a visual prosthesis stimulating the lateral geniculate nucleus has the greatest potential, especially when you also keep applications for people with healthy vision.”

Enjoy!

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Posted in General