Revolutionary Device Could Help Heal Traumatic Brain Injuries

A team of American researchers has successfully implanted a device in the brain of five participants, helping them to restore cognitive function due to a traumatic brain injury (TBI) without serious side effects.

“It’s important to target the area precisely [where the device would sit in the brain],” explains co-senior author of the study Dr Jaimie Henderson. “If you’re even a few millimeters off target, you’re outside the effective zone.” The implant targets a region of the thalamus called the central lateral nucleus, which is involved in many aspects of consciousness.

The small clinical trial lasted 90 days with five people who sustained their injury between three and 18 years prior. The effect was almost instantaneous when the device was switched on to stimulate critical circuits deep within the brain for 12 hours. Records from the Centers for Disease Control and Surveillance show that in 2020, 214,110 hospital admissions and 69,473 deaths were related to TBI. Researchers are looking forward to a larger clinical trial since this small one worked better than expected. Indeed, the average improvement on each participant’s test to assess their ability to focus, concentrate, and plan under timed conditions was 32%, far over the 10% the team expected.