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$6,700,000 for bionic war on disabilities
University of Utah gets grants for devices to help paralyzed people -
University of Utah researchers have won about $6.7 million in federal grants to develop wireless electrodes that would be
implanted to provide blind people with artificial vision and stimulate paralyzed body parts and so disabled people could
walk, talk or control a computer with their thoughts.
"We plan to spend this $6.7 million to further develop technology that we hope will someday help blind individuals see, allow
paraplegics to stand and eventually walk, and let people with vocal cord problems speak," says Richard Normann, a professor
of bioengineering and ophthalmology who is helping spearhead the project.
The money is in the form of four grants from the National Institutes of Health to scientists at the university's College of
Engineering and University of Utah Health Sciences Center. The projects receiving the funding are intended to expand the Utah
Electrode Array technology that Normann first developed in 1989.
The Utah Electrode Array is a silicon chip measuring a quarter-inch on each side and containing 100 tiny electrodes in a
10-by-10 grid. The array is implanted under the dura, which is the membrane covering the brain.
Normann pursued commercial development of the Utah Electrode Array by forming a spin-off company name Bionic Technologies,
LLC, which he and co-owner Brian Hatt sold to Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, Inc. in 2002. Cyberkinetics incorporated
the array and other technologies into its BrainGate System, and implanted a Utah Electrode Array into a paralyzed human
patient for the first time in June 2004. The electrodes, which poke into the part of the brain controlling movement, allowed
the patient to control a computer screen cursor by thinking about moving the cursor.
Now, "we are trying to make the system even better" by developing a "smart" wireless electrode array so it won't be necessary
for people using the device to have 100 wires emerging from their skull, something that raises the possibility of infection
and also of getting the wires snagged while the person is using a wheelchair, Normann says.
"To go from a bundle of wires sticking out of somebody's head to a totally implantable system that is invisible will be a
major advance in this technology," he adds.
Normann has spent more than a decade developing the Utah Electrode Array so it eventually can be implanted in the brains of
blind people. They would wear a tiny eyeglass-mounted camera to collect visual information, and then relay it to electrodes
in the brain's visual cortex. The wireless array would make such an artificial vision system easier for blind people to wear
and use.
Here are details of the four grants, which total as much as $6.658 million:
• The largest grant is for $2.816 million for four years to Florian Solzbacher and Reid Harrison - both assistant professors
of electrical and computer engineering - along with Normann.
They will develop a wireless version of Utah Electrode Array, which will look much like the original but will be slightly
larger and "will have electronic circuitry integrated into it to amplify the signals from each of the 100 electrodes, do
signal processing on those signals [to filter out noise and other unimportant information] and send those signals wirelessly
to a receiver located outside of the body," Normann says.
• A four-year grant of $2.048 million was requested by Normann; Gregory Clark, an associate professor of bioengineering;
Nicholas Brown, a research assistant professor in orthopedic surgery and James Martin, an assistant professor of exercise and
sport science. Normann received verbal confirmation the grant was approved, but says the final amount may be somewhat smaller
than what was requested.
The researchers will use a version of the electrode array that has electrodes of varying lengths, from 0.5 to 1.5
millimeters, so that when it is implanted on nerves that control the legs or arms, it will come into contact with multiple
nerve fibers within a nerve and not just those at a single depth within the nerve.
"This opens up a whole bunch of new applications, one of which is to implant these electrodes in the peripheral nerves of the
legs of a paraplegic," says Normann. "We believe that if we implant three Utah Electrodes Arrays into three different nerves
in each leg - a total of six electrode arrays - and stimulate them appropriately, we should be able to help the paraplegic to
get out of the wheelchair, stand up and eventually walk using his or her muscles," although that won't be tried until after
pre-clinical feasibility studies.
Another use would be to implant the array in nerves that control the bladder, with the array run by a switch. This could
allow a paraplegic to regain control of urination.
• A $1.383 million grant for four years was awarded to bioengineering Professor Patrick Tresco and Normann to make new Utah
Electrode Arrays even more biocompatible than they already are.
So far, nonfunctioning arrays have been implanted in nine temporal lobe epilepsy patients before they underwent unrelated
brain surgery for their disorder. The tests found no problems. The arrays have been implanted in animals for up to three
years. Nevertheless, the body's immune system tends to "wall off" any foreign material implanted in the brain, so Tresco and
Normann will develop new coatings for the array "so the brain is even more unaware of the fact it has been implanted,"
Normann says.
• The final grant, for $411,000 over two years, was awarded to Marshall Smith - an associate professor of
otolaryngology/head and neck surgery - and to Normann.
Smith says the project will determine the feasibility of using a Utah Electrode Array to restore the ability to speak in
certain people by stimulating nerves that control the vocal folds (also known as vocal cords), which are the voice-producing
folds of tissue in the voice box or larynx.
The vocal folds open when we breathe and close when we speak. Some people lose their voice when a vocal fold is paralyzed by
stroke; trauma; damage during surgery of the neck, thyroid or chest; or a tumor that impinges on the nerve to the vocal fold.
"This device is going to be used in an attempt to reanimate the vocal folds to restore the normal movement, both the opening
and closing movement of the vocal folds," Smith says.
The existing Utah Electrode Array will be used in initial tests, but Smith says he hopes a wireless version ultimately will
be available to help restore speech.
Scientists at the New York State Department of Health recently gained publicity for a noninvasive method of allowing
paralyzed people to control computers or other devices by reading brain signals using 64 electrodes in a cap placed on the
scalp. Its major advantage is that nothing needs to be surgically implanted.
But Normann says the method has a big disadvantage, namely, that signals from nerve cells in the brain are weak and "smeared"
together by the fact that the skull and scalp jumble the signals, meaning a paralyzed person using the device could control a
computer or other device only very slowly and with considerable training.
Implanted electrodes can more precisely "listen" to individual nerve cells and record their activity, allowing paralyzed
people to control computers or their own limbs much more quickly, Normann says.
University of Utah Public Relations
201 S Presidents Circle, Room 308
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9017
801-581-6773 fax: 585-3350
http://www.utah.edu/unews
Contacts: Richard Normann
professor of bioengineering and ophthalmology
normann@utah.edu
office: 801-581-7645
cellular: 801-673-5589
Lee Siegel
science news specialist
University of Utah Public Relations
leesiegel@ucomm.utah.edu
office: 801-581-8993
cellular: 801-244-5399
University of Utah
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