A Neural Electrode to Restore lost Functions of the Pudendal Nerve (NERF-PN).
Final Report Abstract
Bladder dysfunction (BD) and sexual dysfunction (SD) following spinal cord injury (SCI) are severe medical conditions that affect people’s quality of life. It is estimated that BD occurs in 70-84% of SCI patients. Sexual function cannot be restored in 46% of cases, where most of them are in the phase of family building. In SCI patients these connections are lesioned or disrupted, leading to the loss of control of the bladder and/ or the sphincter voiding and retention activity. Today’s clinical solutions include the administration of pharmaceuticals and epineural sacral neuromodulation (ESN). However, in SD patients the administration of pharmaceuticals can cause unwanted side effects such as inflammat io n. ESN has shown to be able to treat BD and SD. Unfortunately, the success rate is still low (29-44%), presumably due to non-specific nerve fiber stimulation. The main goal of NERFPN was to develop a neural electrode, which increases the success rate. According to literature it is possible to treat SD and BD through the stimulation of the pudendal nerve. Consequently, a histological analysis of seven pudendal nerves of the rabbit was performed to design a selective, intraneural electrode. The neural electrode was successfully developed in a clean-room environment at the IMTEK. Due to the small size of electrode contacts a conductive polymer (Poly-3,4-ethylendioxythiophene (PE-DOT)) was applied to provide sufficient charge injection once implanted in the animal. Structural and electrochemical characterization showed that the electrode was functional and PEDOT successfully increased electrochemical properties. Finally long-term stimulation tests were performed to test the PEDOT coating stability. Therefore, we have successfully implemented a neural electrode which was specifically developed to treat SD and/ or BD in the SCI animal model. The application of the electrodes in the near future will show the efficiency of the proposed therpay.
Publications
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A roadmap to restore sexual function in the New Zealand white rabbit model. 2023 11th International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering (NER), 01-04. IEEE.
Strauss, Ivo; Streckmann, Jonas & Stieglitz, Thomas
