It may sound like a contradiction, but this MIT spinout has figured out a way to do deep brain stimulation with a vascular stent — a relatively easy install with no brain surgery required. This required some nifty materials science involving carbon nanotubes and a decade of research.
Unlike the BCI companies, DBS targets deep brain regions for interventional stimulation. The application domain is huge. DBS has been shown to work in stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, chronic pain, tremor and others, but 99% of people who could benefit rightly refuse because it requires major open brain surgery with needles implanted into the deep brain regions.
Neurobionics is our most recent investment at Future Ventures, alongside Dolby, GreyMatter and the former Director of the NIMH.
TechCrunch got the scoop:
"You can’t start a company without a healthy dose of daring, and that’s certainly the case with NeuroBionics. The MIT-spinout thinks it could one day improve the lives of millions of people who live with neurological conditions like depression, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease.
Famed investor Steve Jurvetson of Future Ventures said that if everything goes right for the 18-month-old outfit, its approach could further address “the peripheral nervous system for pain, incontinence, and a bunch of other applications.
How? With what? In contrast to these outsized ambitions, NeuroBionics’ tech is tiny. Specifically, NeuroBionics aims to pipe what it has developed — bioelectric fibers the width of a human hair — through blood vessels in the brain using a procedure similar to a stent placement to deliver neuromodulation therapy.
The fibers are powered by a fairly standard implantable battery that’s shaped like an AirPod case, designed to last five to 10 years, and is used by other medical device makers for spinal cord stimulation, among other things.
It’s a pretty nifty alternative to drilling a hole in someone’s skull, as has long been the process with deep brain stimulation. Traditionally, when certain disorders don’t respond to medication, metal electrodes are implanted in the brain to produce electrical impulses and control that abnormal movement.
NeuroBionics’ device is not just less invasive — the company is using carbon nanotubes instead of thin-film platinum or iridium oxide, which are common materials for those electrodes. While the metals are minimally toxic and conduct electricity well, they can also dissolve, limiting their lifespan and causing tissue damage. Carbon nanotubes, on the other hand, are cheaper, can ostensibly last longer, and they make getting MRIs a whole lot easier. (Among other things, metal can create bright spots in MRI images, making it harder to see the brain.)
Like Jurvetson, Antonini insists that eventually, NeuroBionics’ bio-electronic fibers could be used in a whole spectrum of applications, including to deliver drugs, ablate tissue in the brain, and treat conditions relating to the spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system.
As far as Jurvetson is concerned, tech like NeuroBionics’ throws that market wide open — including because there is but a concentrated pocket of large and advanced hospitals that offer the surgery today.
The “application domain” for the startup’s “minimally invasive stent,” enthuses Jurvetson, “is huge.”
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