New battery stimulates damaged nerves

WASHINGTON, Oct 3, 2005 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A device an inch long and only a little wider than a pencil lead is poised to help people with a wide variety of dysfunction, such as Parkinson's disease, urinary incontinence, epilepsy, stroke and spinal-cord damage.

Currently in the approval stage at the Food and Drug Administration, the Bion, as it is called, is a micro-stimulator so small it can be implanted without surgery near damaged nerves to complete neural connections broken by injury or degenerative disease.

Dr. Robert West, considered one of the foremost silicon chemists in the world, developed the electrolyte that conducts energy in the Bion's lithium battery at the Organosilicon Research Center of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

The other components were developed by a consortium: the electrodes at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, the battery at Quallion LLC in Sylmar, Calif., and the micro-stimulator at Advanced Bionics near Boston.

The Alfred Mann Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided the funding.

Lithium batteries have been part of implantable medical devices for years, but West's new electrolyte shrinks the battery so it can be used with neural circuits. The new liquid core increases the battery's life from three to 12 years and allows it to be recharged from outside the body.

Current lithium batteries generate electricity by sending lithium ions between their positive and negative poles via an electrolyte composed of liquid organic carbonates. The space required by the carbonates has kept the devices big enough to require surgical implantation, and often more surgery is required to replace the batteries when they run down. Carbonates also are toxic, and if the patient is injured and the battery leaks, a chemical burn can result.

West's electrolyte is composed of organosilicons, which he said are non-toxic and will not harm surrounding tissues, even if an accidental leak develops, and pose no threat to the environment.

West taught at UW for 40 years, but left five years ago to start the Organosilicon center in Madison. Organosilicon electrolytes were the new institute's first project.

"It's been a very exciting and productive area," West told United Press International. "We thought we were working on projects that would be useful in five to 10 years, not right away."

Josef Michl, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder, found the new discovery exciting.

"It's a marvelous development," Michl told UPI. "It's also the outgrowth of a lot of fundamental research, which usually isn't considered very practical. This device is extremely practical and is a really nice demonstration of the value of basic scientific investigation."

R&D Magazine gave the Bion its R&D 100 Award in June of this year. In addition to its current applications for neural injury, West said the consortium hopes to adapt the device "somewhere down the line" to help diabetics by stimulating insulin production in the pancreas.

Astara March covers healthcare technology for UPI. E-mail: sciencemail@upi.com

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