washington researchers have developed a new wireless device the width of a human hair that can be implanted in the brain and activated by remote control to deliver drugs the technology demonstrated for the first time in mice one day may be used to treat pain depression epilepsy and other neurological disorders in people by targeting therapies to specific brain circuits said researchers at washington university school of medicine in st louis and the university of illinois at urbanachampaign they added that with one of these devices imp8lanted we could theoretically deliver a drug to a specific brain region and activate it with light this approach could deliver therapies that are much more targeted but have fewer side effects the new devices may help people with neurological disorders and other problems in the future it should be possible to manufacture therapeutic drugs that could be activated with light said coprincipal investigator michael r bruchas associate professor of anesthesiology and neurobiology at of washington university previous attempts to deliver drugs or other agents to experimental animals have required the animals to be tethered to pumps and tubes that restricted their movement but the new devices were built with four chambers to carry drugs directly into the brain by activating brain cells with drugs and with light the scientists are getting an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the brain the new devices ultimately may help people with neurological disorders and other problems according to cofirst authors jaewoong jeong a former postdoctoral researcher at the university of illinois and now assistant professor of electrical computer and energy engineering at the university of colorado boulder and jordan g mccall a graduate student in the bruchas lab now we literally can deliver drug therapy with the press of a button mccall said weve designed it to exploit infrared technology similar to that used in a tv remote if we want to influence an animals behaviour with light or with a particular drug we can simply point the remote at the animal and press a button he said the device embeds microfluid channels and microscale pumps but it is soft like brain tissue and can remain in the brain and function for a long time without causing inflammation or neural damage jeong added as part of the study the researchers showed that by delivering a drug to one side of an animals brain they could stimulate neurons involved in movement which caused the mouse to move in a circle in other mice shining a light directly onto brain cells expressing a lightsensitive protein prompted the release of dopamine a neurotransmitter that rewarded the mice by making them feel good the mice then returned to the same location in a maze to seek another reward the study will be published in the journal cell