“BioCircuit Technologies, a development-stage medical device company, received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a $1.7 million grant with the intent to fund $4.6 million over five years. The award will be shared with partnering laboratories at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and the National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies (NCAN) at the Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, NY, to develop a system for enhanced rehabilitation after incomplete spinal cord injury and other disorders such as stroke and multiple sclerosis.”
“This project is sponsored by the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and administered through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program’s U44 mechanism, which seeks to support medical devices on the verge of a clinical trial.”
“Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) affects as many as 450,000 people in the US, with the injury most often being incomplete. Incomplete SCI often disrupts spinal reflexes, causing spasticity and motor impairments that are poorly addressed by existing therapies.”
“Spinal reflex conditioning is a novel type of therapy training that targets specific reflex pathways. Through device-driven feedback and practice, the patient learns to modify the brain’s control over the targeted reflex pathway. Continued training brings about long-lasting change as well as beneficial plasticity in other pathways. This approach has been demonstrated in human SCI patients to reduce limping and increase walking speed. This project will develop and validate a novel, non-invasive system for the practical deployment of spinal reflex conditioning therapies…” Read the full press release here.
Source: BioCircuit Technologies Receives $4.6 Million NIH Award — May 4, 2021. BioCircuit Technologies.
