Browse Technologies

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An assistive device for individuals with upper extremity neuromuscular deficit has been developed by researchers at Vanderbilt. This device is specifically designed for patients having hemiplegia following stroke, incomplete spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, and other disabilities and conditions, who may have severe muscle weakness or inability to fully control an upper limb. In order to facilitate use of the upper limb, the patient can wear the device as a substitute for or a supplement to the patient's volitional movement.

Vanderbilt researchers have developed a novel method for contactless simulation of the central nervous system. This technique involves the use of infrared neural stimulation (INS) to evoke the observable action potentials from neurons of the central nervous system. While infrared neural stimulation of the peripheral nervous system was accomplished almost a decade ago, this is the first technique for infrared stimulation of the central nervous system.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University designed an instrument capable of higher accuracy and analyzing lick microstructure compared to current available models. This device is compatible with classic ventilated home cages, making it easy to build and use with an intuitive touchscreen graphical user interface. The system tracks two-bottle choice licking behavior in up to 18 rodent cages, or 36 single bottles, on a minute-to-minute timescale controlled by a single Arduino microcontroller. Ultimately, the system measures drinking preference over time and changes in bout microstructure, with undisturbed recordings lasting up to 7 days.

The G-protein activated, inward-rectifying potassium (K+) channels, "GIRKs", are a family of ion channels that has been the focus of intense research interest for nearly two decades. GIRK has been shown to play important roles in the pathophysiology of diseases such as anxiety, epilepsy, Down's syndrome, pain perception and drug addiction. Here scientists at Vanderbilt developed the first truly potent, effective, and selective GIRK activator, ML297 (VU0456810) and demonstrated that ML297 is active in animal models of epilepsy. While the group is using ML297 to continue to explore the therapeutic benefits of GIRK modulation, they are continuing to develop more selective and druggable GIRK inhibitors from different scaffolds.