USC Viterbi researcher studies electrical stimulation and the country’s most common neurological disorders
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| Eighty percent of those who have depression experience a relapse at some point. |
Yuxiao
Yang is working on uncovering the brain mechanisms that underlie the
country’s most common neurological disorders, such as depression or Parkinson’s
disease.
Depression,
for example, is a mental disorder that is far more than just general sadness.
It saps the emotion and enjoyment out of daily activities and hobbies, derails
motivation, keeps people tossing and turning at night and leaves millions of
Americans in constant despair.
According
to the American Psychological Association,
depression is the most common mental condition in America, and 80 percent of
those who have it experience a relapse at some point. The Anxiety and
Depression Association of America reports major depressive disorder
affects approximately 14.8 million American adults, or about 6.7 percent of the
U.S. population over the age of 18, in a given year.
Yang, a PhD candidate in electrical engineering
at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, is studying electrical stimulation to
understand the brain mechanisms underlying neurological disorders in the hope
of one day better monitoring and treating disorders such as depression
and Parkinson’s disease. His work on electrical stimulation was a winner
of the student paper award at the annual international conference of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in 2015.
How it works
The
vision is to monitor a patient’s brain and analyze neural activity and signals
to determine a person’s neurological disease state. The monitoring would be
done through minimally invasive electrodes to provide data of brain activity.
Doctors,
scientists and engineers would then process the information based on the
recorded activity to understand how the patient’s brain is operating at
specific times and circumstances while building their knowledge of how they can
stimulate the brain to treat these diseases.
“Through
electrical stimulation, we may be able to alleviate symptoms of the disease or
even find out that the brain has the ability to heal itself,” Yang said.
One way for neurons to communicate is through
electrical signals, like neural spiking activities.
Yuxiao Yang
“One
way for neurons to communicate is through electrical signals, like neural
spiking activities,” Yang added. “Electrical stimulation, for example, may
change the way neurons communicate. Correct stimulation may help alter chaotic
neural communications in neurological disorders to help facilitate normal
communications made in a healthy brain.”
This
development, if successful, could supplement therapy and medication, especially
in patients who are unresponsive to either and have no other treatment options.
“We
are in the early stages of thinking about whether electrical stimulation could
be helpful and safe for patients as an alternative treatment,” said Maryam Shanechi, assistant
professor in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering and Yang’s
faculty adviser. “If the technology development is successful and safe, it may
help treat neurological disorders for patients who do not respond to
conventional therapies such as medication.”
According
to Yang, “Our hope is stimulation can guide the brain to adapt itself
towards a healthy state and finally heal itself and get rid of the need for
stimulation. This will allow both doctors and scientists a better understanding
of how the brain works and how the brain adapts and evolves in response to
electrical stimulation.”
Taking control
Yang’s
research is based on control theory, where a controller determines the inputs
into a system to control its actions; this is already applied to aircraft
control or unmanned drones.
Yang
has also applied control theory to induce anesthesia automatically; his
technique would adjust the anesthetic drug infusion rate automatically and in
real time, putting anesthesia induction on autopilot. His hope is to develop
controllers that adjust the electrical stimulation applied to the brain to help
treat neurological diseases such as depression or Parkinson’s disease.
Yang
is constructing brain models to see how neurological signals change in disease.
He also uses data from the brain activity to determine the potential effects of
electrical stimulation.
Yang
estimates it will take about five years to develop a prototype device that
could have potential for treatment and about 10 years for a finalized product.
“The
main challenge with this work is that the brain mechanisms of varying diseases,
such as Parkinson’s disease, are poorly understood,” Shanechi said. “We will
have to run a system identification, which will demonstrate how the brain
works. Once we have a greater understanding, finding out how to cure diseases
will be easier.”
Yang
lists understanding the brain’s synapse signals, properly identifying brain
signals in certain diseases, predicting the patient’s behavior, and developing
safe and compatible devices as the biggest challenges ahead.
“The
brain is the most mysterious computer in the world,” he said.
http://news.usc.edu/96870/doctoral-candidate-works-to-understand-mechanisms-behind-common-brain-disorders/?
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