A: About the size of a pocket watch, the NeuroCybernetic Prosthesis (NCP®) System now is being tested at The University of Arizona Health Sciences Center. This pacemaker-like device controls seizures using electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve, which is connected to areas of the brain thought to be involved in producing epileptic seizures.
Treatments currently available for epilepsy include drug therapy, which may not always be effective and can have severe side-effects, and, in some cases, brain surgery. Research for alternative therapies suggests that stimulation of the vagus nerve may disrupt the abnormal electrical activity in the brain that causes seizures.
The device is inserted underneath the skin in the chest in a short operation. A wire, instead of being run to the heart as with a pacemaker, runs to the vagal nerve that comes down the neck near the carotid artery. The wire is wrapped around the nerve itself and electrical impulses are sent out by the stimulator. The vagal nerve carries information from the brain to organs such as the lungs, stomach and heart.
Batteries powering the device last about 3 years. This type of treatment already has been approved in Europe for use in certain people with epilepsy. But it probably will be 3-5 years before it's released for widespread use in the United States. About 1 percent of the U.S. population has epilepsy.
Q: Is it true that some people have pain that never goes away?
A: Unfortunately, there are pains that seem to exist without any injury to the body. This kind of pain represents an abnormal reaction by the nervous system of stimuli from the environment.
Even something normally not painful, like a light touch or puff of cool air, is felt as very intense, burning severe pain. This condition affects about 5 million people in the United States; and the problems can persist for months or years without any reason. The body is telling us something is wrong, but we don't know why. It doesn't indicate disease.
Treating this type of pain is very difficult and sometimes impossible. It doesn't respond to anti-inflammatory medication such as ibuprofen or motrin, or narcotics like morphine. They don't work at all or don't work very well in this type of abnormal pain.
Normally, pain lets a person know he or she is injured in some way. Physicians and researchers studying pathological pain don't understand why this pain persists, sometimes for many years, without any apparent cause. Researchers at the UA are working to develop medication to treat this type of abnormal pain.