Share:

Article Topics

The field of bioelectronic medicine combines molecular medicine, bioengineering, and neuroscience to discover and develop nerve stimulating and sensing technologies to regulate biological processes and treat disease.

Work submitted to the journal will cover topics in these disciplines but may also expand to topics in the fields of 
disease biology, bioinformatics, bioengineering, materials science, nanotechnology, neurosurgery, and device development. Ethical, legal and financial issues related to bioelectronic medicine and device development are welcomed. Significant negative results will be considered. 

The following are examples (not limitations) of topics which may be considered by the journal: basic science, preclinical science, clinical studies, transcranial modulation, telemetry, modeling, model-based control, neural decoding, algorithms, and related tools (i.e. electrodes).

Neurostimulation of the Cholinergic Antiinflammatory Pathway in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Authors
Yaakov A Levine, Frieda Koopman, Michael Faltys, Ralph Zitnik, and Paul-Peter Tak
Abstract
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) cause significant morbidity and mortality. Despite significant therapeutic advances, the medical need for patients with these disorders remains high. An important neural-immune regulatory mechanism termed the “inflammatory reflex,” and its efferent arm, the “cholinergic antiinflammatory pathway” regulate innate and adaptive immunity. An emerging body of evidence indicates that stimulation of this pathway with implantable medical devices is a feasible therapeutic approach in disorders of dysregulated inflammation. Herein we describe the underlying biology and the preclinical experiments done in standard animal models that provided the rationale for testing in clinical trials. The preclinical development approach comprised elements of classic drug and medical device development, yet had unique features and challenges. “Bioelectronic medicines” having ideal characteristics of both drugs and medical devices hold great conceptual promise for treatment of systemic diseases in the future. However studies being done today will help determine whether neurostimulation of the cholinergic antiinflammatory pathway (NCAP) has the potential in the nearer term to fulfill the needs of patients, caregivers and payers for an additional potential treatment option for inflammatory disorders, and might thus become one of the first feasible examples of a bioelectronic medicine.
Volume
Bioelectronic Medicine 2014
Page Range
34-43
DOI
10.15424/bioelectronmed.2014.00008
Date Published
December 2, 2014
Article PDF
Neurostimulation of the Cholinergic Antiinflammatory Pathway in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Inflammatory Bowel DiseaseNew description3139 KB
Article Type
Proceedings