The AIMD Workshop will take place in Barcelona on June 5&6, 2025. This is the second installment of the workshop that took place last year in Punta del Este, Uruguay. This year’s workshop is being organized by Antoni Ivorra (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) and Nicolas Barabino (ADCORPUS).
Registration is open only until May 23rd.
Image credit: Modified from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiefe_Hirnstimulation_-_Sonden_RoeSchaedel_ap.jpg
I attended the “Engineering Principles of Deep Brain and Spinal Cord Stimulation” workshop at NANS 2025, and was very impressed by Dr. Cameron McIntyre’s presentation where he analyzed the state of the DBS market.
Dr. McIntyre showed that the cost of developing DBS technology over the past two decades was justified by the expected market growth. However, the DBS market is not growing anywhere near the rate at which it was expected. In 2024 it had barely returned to 2019 numbers after it sharply decreased during COVID, and is now projected to stay flat for years to come.
The existential threats to DBS are:
The main issue is that although DBS is the best therapy for Parkinson’s, the vast majority of patients refuse it because they feel that it is too invasive. Instead, they are lured to High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) because, although in Dr. McIntyre’s view it is a”silly concept,” it promises to be a quick fix.
In Dr. McIntyre’s view, if DBS doesn’t find new indications, investment will shrink and its market will drop to half within 5 years. These new indications could include epilepsy, depression, and stroke.
Another major factor that is causing DBS’ decline is its currently overcomplicated clinical workflow. Dr. McIntyre believes that in order to survive, a major paradigm shift is needed to standardize DBS surgery and automatize DBS management.
Image Credit: Teliatry
Teliatry is a company based in Richardson, TX that is developing the ReStore batteryless, wireless neurostimulator. The glass-encased stimulator was developed in collaboration with the Texas Biomedical Device Center (TXBDC) at The University of Texas at Dallas.
A first device using this stimulator is a Vagus Nerve Stimulator with integrated platinum electrodes, for which TXBDC has received FDA approval for pilot studies in the treatment of PTSD and to enhance recovery following a spinal cord injury. Teliatry expects their platform to be also usable for superficial (< 4cm deep) nerve stimulation delivering up to 5mA pulses, as well as a neuromodulation R&D platform suitable for studies involving small animals.
First-generation RF-powered BION (RFB1) microstimulator. Image Credit: Alfred Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering
In 1991, Dr. Gerald Loeb, at the time a Professor of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering at Queen’s University (Kingston, Canada), first proposed a miniature, injectable, RF-powered device for the stimulation of tissue or motor neurons. The BION® device was developed based on this concept as a joint project between Queens University (Kingston, ON, Canada), IIT (Chicago, IL), and the Alfred E. Mann Foundation (Valencia, CA) with funding from the NIH Neural Prosthesis Program. The RF BION 1 (RFB1) was then manufactured by the Alfred Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering at USC.
Image Credit: Pompeu Fabra University
Prof. Antony Ivorra’s Biomedical Electronics Research Group at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona is developing an injectable neurostimulator that they call the eAxon Electronic Axon.
The thread-like IPG is externally powered using high-frequency, volume-conduction currents delivered transcutaneously by an wearable transmitter through electrically-conductive fabric in contact with the skin. The same currents enable bi-directional communication between the external transmitter and the implant, enabling not only stimulation of deep-seated nerves and muscles, but also sensing, and hence opening the possibility of closed-loop control.
The IPGs contain a microcontroller-based circuit, so multiple IPGs can be implanted and controlled by a single transmitter. Furthermore, unlike inductively-powered devices, the tansmitter does not need to be precisely positioned over the implant locations.
Details about the system are presented in detail through a series of videos in the main eAxon page. Click on the image below for a high-resolution pdf copy of the eAxon flyer: eAxon Flyer:
Image Credit: eAxon