Spanish technology non-invasively against the cases of epilepsy more complicated

A sophisticated technological device designed in Spain opens a way in the world as an alternative therapy against cases of epilepsy more complicated, those who do not respond to pharmacological treatments.

it Is the first step in a field, the field of stimulation of cranial non-invasive and high-definition, which arises as a therapy cerebral custom, and that in the future could be used for the diagnosis and treatment of neuronal diseases or cognitive disorders.

After overcoming various experimental phases, the Spanish company Neutronics account already with the authorization of the Drug Administration of united States (FDA, its acronym in English) to perform a clinical trial with 140 patients, and demonstrate the effectiveness of this new technology to reduce epileptic seizures.

Ana Maiques, who received the european award for female innovative of the European Commission in the year 2014, is the executive director of this company, and insists that this is “not science fiction” but also in that there is to know to manage expectations that any medical advance is generated between the patients of any disease.

The message, impinges Maiques in an interview, is that a team of scientists and innovators are developing new technologies to help patients with neurological disease, but that these technologies have to pass the same scrutiny that any drug before the regulatory agencies to verify their effectiveness and approval.

And its technology consists of a“a hat” capable of injecting through electrodes small currents electrical brain, a system that Ana Maiques defined as “neural stimulation non-invasive” and that in the next few years could establish itself as a new therapy against certain diseases.

Ana Maiques has been in Madrid invited by the Fundación Ramón Areces to participate in a scientific conference on “sensors biomimetic”, a device that can be located in the brain, under the skin and even ingested to explore the tissues in a continuous and minimally invasive, capable in addition in many cases of camouflage in the body to monitor certain diseases and to anticipate the potential crisis.

The technology that he has developed his company intends to, through that stimulation cranial scheduled program and applicable for twenty a few minutes a day, reduce the number of crisis epilepticwithout the need to resort to surgery, something which has been proven and tested on a small group of patients.

Maiques was selected last year to be part of the first advisory group of the European Council on Innovation (EIC, in English), a team consisting of 22 people selected from more than 600 nominations.

The combination of computer programs with the artificial intelligence it allows you to decide how many electrodes and which type of current used in each pathology, has explained the scientist, who has pointed out the interest in this medical technology could have for the treatment of other neurodegenerative diseases such as alzheimer’s or dementia.

To be a therapy “cortical” that acts on the cerebral cortex, this will not be effective to address other diseases such as párkinson, located in areas of “very deep” in the brain, but in those pathologies localized in the cortex, among which have been cited by cognitive disorders, hyperactivity, the autismor attention-deficit.

The company that runsalso participated in an international consortium which form part of companies and academic and scientific institutions in europe which is investigating the development of models of the brain advanced, based on mathematics and physics, to improve and personalize the treatment of certain diseases.

The project, funded by the European Union with 10 million euros, endorse -keeps Ana Maiques in the interview – that science and technology are developing “has a future”, and insists on the importance of this kind of technologies and therapies to jump out of the laboratory -when you exceed all the regulatory aspects and clinical examinations – the residence of the patients who need them.

At that moment the debate will focus, has advance, in how to finance this type of therapies to be accessible to all patients.

She considered an achievement that the u.s. FDA to support a clinical trial to verify the effectiveness of the electrical stimulation non-invasive for patients with epilepsy who do not respond to the medication and hopes to make his company the first worldwide authorized to use this technology as a therapy .

The challenge, then, will be to ensure that this technology is can be used in bulk to household level used to treat epilepsy, or other neurodegenerative diseases, but also acknowledges how difficult it is to incorporate therapies in a field as complex as the brain; first, by the difficulties and complexities of scientific, after the regulatory aspects that need to be overcome; and lastly, the access to the market that involve these new therapies.

Phoneia