Researchers Developed New Wireless Devices to Block Pain

In a recent Optogenetics study, which is a biological technique involving the use of light to control cells in living tissue, researchers have developed new wireless devices to block pain in mice. This research may provide significant therapies in the future for all pain related healthcare matters.

“Our eventual goal is to use this technology to treat pain in very specific locations by providing a kind of ‘switch’ to turn off the pain signals long before they reach the brain,” said co-senior investigator Robert W. Gereau IV, PhD, the Dr. Seymour and Rose T. Brown Professor of Anesthesiology and director of the Washington University Pain Center.

Funding for this research comes from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Transformative Research Award, as well as the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, an NIH Ruth I Kirschstein Predoctoral Fellowship, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Medical Research Fellowship, and a W.M. Keck Fellowship in Molecular Medicine. NIH grant numbers NS081707, 1F31 NS078852, NS076324 and TR32 GM108539. 

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