Health start-up uses electrodes to treat depressionBy Sarah McBride / BloombergThis summer, doctors in St Louis, Missouri, shaved away a small part of a person’s skull and replaced it with electrodes. Inner Cosmos, the start-up behind the surgery, is one of a growing cadre of tech companies working on implanted devices for the brain. The trial, the first of its kind using implants in the bone of the skull to treat depression, represents a step forward for scientists’ efforts to treat mood disorders with hardware. New York-based Synchron, which has raised more than US$60 million, avoids brain surgery by sending electrodes to the brain through blood vessels, in a stent. The area Inner Cosmos targets is similar to that of another technique, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, which does not require surgery, but takes longer to implement than the Inner Cosmos device.

Source: Taipei Times September 25, 2022 03:52 UTC