Living brain implant could predict seizure onset

SCIENTISTS in Ireland are developing a ‘living brain implant’ that senses and treats impending epilepsy seizures.

SFI FutureNeuro researchers based at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and Waterford Institute of Technology have secured funding under the EU Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) programme to lead a frontier collaborative research project to build an implantable personalised seizure monitor and drug-release device.

Professor Sasitharan Balasubramaniam, an investigator in FutureNeuro and Director of TSSG Centre in WIT, will lead the project.

The programme will capitalise on a breakthrough discovery by RCSI collaborators Professors Jochen Prehn and David Henshall, who found that increases in fragments of transfer RNA, essential molecules in the body, precede seizure onset in some patients.

The multidisciplinary team of researchers are aiming to develop a biological brain implant that will detect spikes in tRNA and respond with a seizure-suppressing treatment.

The project, called PRIME (Personalised Living Cell Synthetic Computing Circuit for Sensing and Treating Neurological Disorders), was awarded funding of €4.4m under the EU’s Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) programme.

Use of engineered biological cells in this revolutionary technology means the implanted device will not have any electronic-based components that require an energy supply, as was often the case with earlier brain implants made from nonorganic material.

The implants to be developed by the PRIME team can also be personalised, using artificial intelligence, to accommodate the different types and levels of seizures experienced by individual epilepsy patients.

Prof. Sasitharan Balasubramaniam said although epilepsy is the main focus, the project offers the potential to treat other neurodegenerative disorders.