This article on pain relief is part of a longer series on Regenerative Medicine. You can also visit williamhaseltine.com to find other stories about this topic. Regenerative Medicine, as I define it, is any medical treatment that restores us to our everyday health after we have been injured or damaged by trauma, are disadvantaged by birth, or become worn out by time. Chemicals, genes, proteins, cells, and cells can be used as drugs, gene editing, and prosthetics.
Northwestern University scientists have created a new pain relief device. It uses temperature control to stop pain signals from reaching the brain. This small, flexible device could replace opioids and other addictive drugs.
The abuse of opioids has been a continuing problem in the United States since the Covid-19 pandemic. There are few other pain relief options, leading to increased opioid addiction and overdose rates.
Using cooling devices that lower the temperature-specific nerves can block pain signals from the brain, according to previous studies. Researchers can reduce the temperature of nerves to inhibit pain signals and decrease their activity. Cooling implants were historically bulky and difficult to remove.
Now, in a paper published in Nature, Reeder et al. This paper describes how Reeder et al. developed a pain-relieving device that can be used immediately and easily absorbed by the body.
Reeder and colleagues developed a cooling implant to address the problems of existing cooling devices. Reeder et al. sought to create a device that could wrap around pain-signaling nerves in a flexible manner. It would enable the device to target one nerve at a given time and be extremely precise. Researchers began their research by studying elastomers, a class of materials. Elastomers can be made of plastic, rubber, and resin. They are flexible and flexible. Elastomers can also be water-soluble. It means that if an elastomer is placed in the body, it will dissolve over time.
How could an elastomer-based device cool down the nerve? Reeder et al. This challenge was overcome by Reeder et al. Microfluidic systems are tiny channels that allow fluid to flow through a material. Reeder and colleagues incorporated a microfluidic device into an elastomer. Reeder et al. were able to circulate a coolant throughout the entire implant, cooling the nerves that it wrapped around.
The device was then ready for testing in rats after researchers added an electronic system to monitor the temperature of the nerves and control the amount of coolant pumped through it.
Researchers successfully implanted a cooling device into rats suffering from leg-based nerve injury. They wrapped the device around the sciatic nerve, which controls the muscles in the lower part of the body. Researchers found that the activity in the sciatic nerve had dropped by 92% after cooling it for eight minutes. The time it took for training through the sciatic nerve to travel was also significantly longer. Reeder and colleagues found that the nerve was back to average temperature after turning off the device. Reeder et al. also found that activity had returned to normal levels.
Although more research is needed to confirm the findings of this study in humans, these results are encouraging and may point to a new way to manage pain. As new pain-relief technologies are developed, we will see more exciting science. We may also be able to curb the opioid crisis.
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