197 results about "Autonomic nerve" patented technology

The present invention teaches a method and apparatus for physiological modulation, including neural and gastrointestinal modulation, for the purposes of treating several disorders, including obesity, depression, epilepsy, and diabetes. This includes chronically implanted neural and neuromuscular modulators, used to modulate the afferent neurons of the sympathetic nervous system to induce satiety. Furthermore, this includes neuromuscular stimulation of the stomach to effect baseline and intermittent smooth muscle contraction to increase gastric intraluminal pressure, which induces satiety, and stimulate sympathetic afferent fibers, including those in the sympathetic trunk, splanchnic nerves, and greater curvature of the stomach, to augment the perception of satiety.

Apparatus is provided for treating a condition of a subject, including an electrode device, adapted to be coupled to an autonomic nerve of the subject, and a control unit. The control unit is adapted to drive the electrode device to apply to the nerve a stimulating current, which is capable of inducing action potentials in a therapeutic direction in a first set and a second set of nerve fibers of the nerve, and to drive the electrode device to apply to the nerve an inhibiting current, which is capable of inhibiting the induced action potentials traveling in the therapeutic direction in the second set of nerve fibers, the nerve fibers in the second set having generally larger diameters than the nerve fibers in the first set. Other embodiments are also described.

An implantable stimulator(s), small enough to be located near or adjacent to an autonomic nerve(s) innervating urinary and / or gastrointestinal structures, uses a power source / storage device, such as a rechargeable battery. Periodic recharging of such a power source / storage device is accomplished, for example, by inductive coupling with an external appliance. The small stimulator provides a means of stimulating a nerve(s) or other tissue when desired, without the need for external appliances during the stimulation session. When necessary, external appliances are used for the transmission of data to and / or from the stimulator(s) and for the transmission of power, if necessary. In a preferred embodiment, the system is capable of open- and closed-loop operation. In closed-loop operation, at least one implant includes at least one sensor, and the sensed condition is used to adjust stimulation parameters.

A method for stimulating a portion of a vagus nerve of a patient to treat a pancreatic disorder is provided. At least one electrode is coupled to at least one portion of an autonomic nerve of the patient. The portion may include a celiac plexus, a superior mesenteric plexus, and a thoracic splanchnic. An electrical signal is applied to the portion of the vagus nerve using the electrode to treat the pancreatic disorder.

Methods, systems, and apparatus for assessing a state of an epilepsy disease or a comorbidity thereof are provided. The methods comprise receiving at least one autonomic index, neurologic index, stress marker index, psychiatric index, endocrine index, adverse effect of therapy index, physical fitness index, or quality of life index of a patient; comparing the at least one index to at least one reference value; and assessing a state of an epilepsy disease or a body system of the patient based on the comparison. A computer readable program storage device encoded with instructions that, when executed by a computer, perform the method described above is also provided. A medical device system capable of implementing the method described above is also provided.

Methods, systems, and apparatus for assessing a state of a comorbidity associated with a primary disease are provided. The methods comprise receiving at least one autonomic index, neurologic index, stress marker index, psychiatric index, endocrine index, adverse effect of therapy index, physical fitness index, or quality of life index of a patient; comparing the at least one index to at least one reference value; and assessing a state of a body system of the patient that is a site of the comorbidity, based on the comparison. A computer readable program storage device encoded with instructions that, when executed by a computer, perform the method described above is also provided. A medical device system capable of implementing the method described above is also provided.

The present invention teaches a method and apparatus for physiological modulation, including neural and gastrointestinal modulation, for the purposes of treating several disorders, including obesity, depression, epilepsy, and diabetes. This includes chronically implanted neural and neuromuscular modulators, used to modulate the afferent neurons of the sympathetic nervous system to induce satiety. Furthermore, this includes neuromuscular stimulation of the stomach to effect baseline and intermittent smooth muscle contraction to increase gastric intraluminal pressure, which induces satiety, and stimulate sympathetic afferent fibers, including those in the sympathetic trunk, splanchnic nerves, and greater curvature of the stomach, to augment the perception of satiety.

An implantable medical device is provided for the suppression or prevention of pain, movement disorders, epilepsy, cerebrovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases, sleep disorders, autonomic disorders, abnormal metabolic states, disorders of the muscular system, and neuropsychiatric disorders in a patient. The implantable medical device can be a neurostimulator configured to be implanted on or near a cranial nerve to treat headache or other neurological disorders. One aspect of the implantable medical device is that it includes an electronics enclosure, a substrate integral to the electronics enclosure, and a monolithic feed-through integral to the electronics enclosure and the substrate. In some embodiments, the implantable medical device can include a fixation apparatus for attaching the device to a patient.

A neural stimulation therapy system for atherosclerotic plaques is provided. One aspect of this disclosure relates to a medical device for applying neural stimulation therapy for atherosclerotic plaques. The device includes a neural stimulator adapted to deliver an electrical signal through at least one electrode to an autonomic neural target. The device also includes a controller to control the neural stimulator to provide a therapy for atherosclerotic plaques. The device is external to a human body in an embodiment, and includes an implantable medical device (IMD) in various embodiments. According to an embodiment, the device includes a neural stimulation lead connected to the neural stimulator. The neural stimulator delivers electrical signals with waveform parameters based on sensed arterial blockage levels, according to various embodiments. Other aspects and embodiments are provided herein.

A neurological control system for modulating activity of any component or structure of some or all of the nervous system, or any structure interfaced thereto, generally referred to herein as a “nervous system component.” This system generates neural modulation signals delivered to a nervous system component through one or more neuromodulators to control neurological state or autonomic state and prevent neurological or metabolic signs and symptoms. Such treatment parameters may be derived from a neural response to previously delivered neural modulation signals, with sensors configured to sense a particular characteristic indicative of a neurological, psychiatric, or metabolic condition.

An implantable medical device is provided for the suppression or prevention of pain, movement disorders, epilepsy, cerebrovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases, sleep disorders, autonomic disorders, abnormal metabolic states, disorders of the muscular system, and neuropsychiatric disorders in a patient. The implantable medical device can be a neurostimulator configured to be implanted on or near a cranial nerve to treat headache or other neurological disorders. One aspect of the implantable medical device is that it includes an electronics enclosure, a substrate integral to the electronics enclosure, and a monolithic feed-through integral to the electronics enclosure and the substrate. In some embodiments, the implantable medical device can include a fixation apparatus for attaching the device to a patient.

An implantable stimulator(s), small enough to be located near or adjacent to an autonomic nerve(s) innervating urinary and / or gastrointestinal structures, uses a power source / storage device, such as a rechargeable battery. Periodic recharging of such a power source / storage device is accomplished, for example, by inductive coupling with an external appliance. The small stimulator provides a means of stimulating a nerve(s) or other tissue when desired, without the need for external appliances during the stimulation session. When necessary, external appliances are used for the transmission of data to and / or from the stimulator(s) and for the transmission of power, if necessary. In a preferred embodiment, the system is capable of open- and closed-loop operation. In closed-loop operation, at least one implant includes at least one sensor, and the sensed condition is used to adjust stimulation parameters.

Methods and devices to treat discogenic lumbar back pain are disclosed. Electrodes are implanted within the anterior epidural space of the patient. A pulse generator that is connected to the electrodes delivers electrical impulses to sympathetic nerves located within the posterior longitudinal ligament (PLL) of the lumbar spine and outer posterior annulus fibrosus of the intervertebral disc. In alternate embodiments, energy directed to nerves in the PLL may be from light or mechanical vibrations, or the nerves may be cooled. The electrodes may also be used diagnostically to correlate spontaneous nerve activity with spinal movement, fluctuations in autonomic tone and the patient's experience of pain. The electrodes may also be used to generate diagnostic evoked potentials. The diagnostic data are used to devise parameters for the therapeutic nerve stimulation. Automatic analysis of the data may be incorporated into a closed-loop system that performs the nerve stimulation automatically.

A method is provided, including identifying that a subject is at risk of suffering from atrial fibrillation (AF). Responsively to the identifying, a risk of an occurrence of an episode of the AF is reduced by applying an electrical current to a site of the subject selected from the group consisting of: a vagus nerve, a sinoatrial (SA) node fat pad, a pulmonary vein, a carotid artery, a carotid sinus, a coronary sinus, a vena cava vein, a jugular vein, an azygos vein, an innominate vein, and a subclavian vein, and configuring the current to stimulate autonomic nervous tissue in the site. Other embodiments are also described.

A method for treating a Parkinson's patient with digestive / pancreatic enzymes involves administering an effective amount of digestive / pancreatic enzymes to an individual having the disorder in order to improve a symptom of the disorder. In addition, a method is provided for determining whether an individual has, or may develop, Parkinson's disease or related dysautonomic disorders and for determining whether an individual will benefit from the administration of pancreatic / digestive enzymes to treat the dysautonomic disorder.

A biotic sleep state determining apparatus that determines a sleep state of a subject based on a series of pulse interval data that indicate a time interval of one cycle of a pulse wave of the subject, and on body movement data that indicates a body movement of the subject, the apparatus includes a body movement determining unit that determines that the body movement occurs if a fluctuation amount of the body movement data is greater than a first predetermined threshold, a pulse interval data processor that processes the series of pulse interval data after removing pulse interval data measured in parallel with the body movement data from the series of pulse interval data, if the body movement determining unit determines that the body movement occurs, and a sleep state determining unit that determines the sleep state based on autonomic nerve indexes acquired from the series of pulse interval data processed by the pulse interval data processor.

Embodiments of the invention concern methods and apparatuses for deriving respiratory data from both single lead and multi-lead ECG data recordings. Other embodiments of the invention address the assessment of respiration rate from respiratory data such as respiratory data derived from ECG data. Still other embodiments of the invention address methods and apparatuses for the assessment of autonomic function. These last embodiments involve the derivation of respiratory data from ECG data, comparing the respiration rate to key threshold values, and the final derivation of one or more HRV parameters from the ECG data. The embodiments of the invention have implementations applicable to data previously recorded data as well as data recorded and processed in a real-time manner.

A health management apparatus includes a first pulse wave measuring unit that measures a first pulse wave of a subject during sleep; and a second pulse wave measuring unit that measures a second pulse wave of the subject during sleep. The second pulse wave is different from the first pulse wave in propagation time from the heart of the subject. The apparatus also includes a pulse transmission time calculating unit that calculates a pulse transmission time indicating a time difference between the first and second pulse waves; a pulse interval calculating unit that calculates a pulse interval based on at least one of the first and second pulse waves; an autonomic nerve index calculating unit that calculates an autonomic nerve index based on the pulse transmission time and the pulse interval; and a health determining unit that determines the condition of health of the subject based on the autonomic nerve index.

A method and apparatus for stimulating a portion of a vagus nerve of a patient to treat a gastrointestinal disorder is provided. At least one electrode is coupled to at least one portion of a vagus nerve of the patient. The portion of the a vagus nerve may include an esophageal plexus, a myenteric plexus of aurbach, a submucous plexus of the meissner, a principal nerve of the lesser curvature of the stomach, and a gastric branch of said vagus nerve. An electrical signal is applied to the portion of the vagus nerve using the electrode to treat the gastrointestinal disorder.

A sleep state measuring apparatus includes an autonomic nerve index obtaining unit that obtains a user's autonomic nerve index; and a sleep periodicity index calculating unit that calculates a sleep periodicity index based on a temporal change of the autonomic nerve index and a change in a user's sleeping cycle, wherein the sleep periodicity index indicates whether the user is sleeping or not according to a user's ideal sleeping cycle as an index, or a dominance index calculating unit that calculates a parasympathetic nerve dominance index which shows dominance of a parasympathetic nerve index included in the autonomic nerve index with respect to a sympathetic nerve index included in the autonomic nerve index for a user during sleep.

Implantable systems, and methods for use therein, perform at least one of a cardiac assessment and an autonomic assessment. Premature atrial contractions (PACs) are induced to thereby cause corresponding premature contractions in the ventricles. Short-term fluctuations in cardiac intervals, that follow the premature contractions in the ventricles caused by the induced PACs, are monitored. At least one of a cardiac assessment and an autonomic assessment is performed based on the monitored fluctuations in cardiac intervals that follow the premature contractions in the ventricles caused by the induced PACs. This can include assessing a patient's risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD), assessing a patient's autonomic tone and / or detecting myocardial ischemic events based on the monitored fluctuations in cardiac intervals that follow the premature contractions in the ventricles caused by the induced PACs.

A sleep state measuring apparatus includes an autonomic nerve index obtaining unit that obtains a user's autonomic nerve index; and a sleep periodicity index calculating unit that calculates a sleep periodicity index based on a temporal change of the autonomic nerve index and a change in a user's sleeping cycle, wherein the sleep periodicity index indicates whether the user is sleeping or not according to a user's ideal sleeping cycle as an index, or a dominance index calculating unit that calculates a parasympathetic nerve dominance index which shows dominance of a parasympathetic nerve index included in the autonomic nerve index with respect to a sympathetic nerve index included in the autonomic nerve index for a user during sleep.

The invention relates to the field of emotion recognition, in particular to a nervous emotion intensity identification system and an information processing method based on multiple physiological parameters. The information processing method includes the steps of offline training and online monitoring, wherein the offline training includes the processes of inducing users' nervous emotions, collecting users' multiple physiological signals and carrying out signal processing; the signal processing includes the processes of preprocessing, feature extraction and pattern recognition; the preprocessing includes the processes of suppressing power frequency interference for EEG signals by an adaptive filter, removing the power frequency interference by a band pass filter after amplifying the ECG, respiration and skin electrical signals, and intercepting valid data by an information processing tool. The nervous emotion intensity identification system and the information processing method have the advantages of collecting central nervous signals and autonomic nerve signals that reflect the nervous system information of the human body, establishing a classification model for people or individuals by offline training to carry out the real-time recognition and detection on the intensity of the users' nervous emotions, warning for the nervous emotions of excessive intensity, storing the users' emotional physiological signals in the whole process, and detecting the intensity of the users' nervous emotions in real time.

A miniature wireless apparatus for recording and remote monitoring physiological signals and use thereof are described. The miniature wireless apparatus comprises a signal collecting module, a signal processing module, a wireless module, and a recording device. The methods for recording and remote monitoring physiological signals comprising collecting physiological signals by a signal collecting module, processing the said physiological signals by a signal processing module and recording the processed signals by a recording device, modulating the said processed signals and synchronously transmitting and receiving the modulated signals by a wireless module to integrate the physiological signals, receiving the signals by a remote receiver, and recording, monitoring, and analyzing the physiological signals by the remote receiver and further transmitting the physiological signals to the remote monitoring station through a network. Methods for sleep monitoring and evaluating and for monitoring and evaluating of autonomic nerve function using the miniature wireless apparatus are further described.

The invention discloses a heart rate variability analyzing method based on an amplitude spectrum and instruments. The method comprises the following steps that a human body autonomic nervous function monitor is installed, after amplification, filtering and analog-digital conversion are carried out on electrocardio signals collected by an electrocardio electrode slice, an RR interval time sequence is built, the QRS waveform of the electrocardio signals has the features of large amplitude, short time limit, steep waveform and easy recognition, the key for obtaining HRV signals is that the R wave of an electrocardiogram is accurately calibrated, and according to the morphological characteristic of an R wave picture, the wave crest of the R wave is the maximum positive value in a single signal period; the instruments included in the method comprise a preamplifier module used for amplifying the electrocardio signals, a filter module, an A / D conversion module, an R crest positioning module, a signal pseudo crest pseudo differential eliminating module, an RR sequence forming module, an interpolation module and a display module which are sequentially connected, the preamplifier module is connected with the electrocardio electrode slice through a guide line, and the electrode slice is arranged on the surface of the human body skin and used for collecting the electrocardio signals of the human body.

An autonomic nervous activity monitor capable of predicting occurrence of abnormal reaction depending on autonomic nervous activity and used for medical practice and the like is provided. A blood component collecting apparatus 100 carries out frequency analysis to a pattern of heartbeat which is acquired by an ECG 300 from a donor, and calculates a high frequency component value [msec2] defined as an indicator for parasympathetic activity and a ratio value of a low frequency component to the high frequency component defined as an indicator for sympathetic activity to detect a change in these values on a time-series base. When a judgment circuit 204 predicts that abnormal reaction may occur to a donor after blood collection operation is started, a controller 200 controls a pump 9 to decrease a blood drawing or blood returning speed, or, to stop blood drawing or blood returning operation.

A method is provided, including identifying that a subject is at risk of suffering from atrial fibrillation (AF). Responsively to the identifying, a risk of an occurrence of an episode of the AF is reduced by applying an electrical current to a site of the subject selected from the group consisting of: a vagus nerve, a sinoatrial (SA) node fat pad, a pulmonary vein, a carotid artery, a carotid sinus, a coronary sinus, a vena cava vein, a jugular vein, an azygos vein, an innominate vein, and a subclavian vein, and configuring the current to stimulate autonomic nervous tissue in the site. Other embodiments are also described.

The invention relates to a heart rate variability biofeedback exercise systematic method, comprising a set of autonomic nervous cardiopulmonary system regulation state and harmonicity metrics and a method of guiding a trainee into harmonious state. A heart rate variability biofeedback exercise apparatus of the invention collects heart rate and respiratory signals of the trainee in real time, analyzes and computes the autonomic nervous cardiopulmonary system regulation state and harmonicity metrics of the trainee, and guides the trainee to regulate mood and respiration to the harmonious state. A heart rate variability biofeedback exercise is effective in regulating autonomic nervous regulation state, thus lowering cardiopulmonary system risk; is effective in relieving competition mental stress, thus increasing the score. Therefore the method and apparatus are significant to keeping people healthy and improving living quality.

The present invention provides methods and apparatuses to assess vascular stiffness of a subject, and to assess diabetes or hypertension from the assessment of vascular stiffness. Example embodiments comprise determining arrival at a peripheral site of a blood pressure wave as a function of time relative to the cardiac cycle of the subject at a plurality of measurement conditions, wherein at least two of the conditions are characterized by at least one of: (a) different central transmural pressure, (b) different peripheral transmural pressure; assessing vascular stiffness from the determinations at the plurality of measurement conditions.

A microcomputer included in a physical condition monitoring system calculates the amount of autonomic nerve activity during sleep based on physical information during sleep collected by a physical information collecting device 1. The physical information contains heart rates, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and the amount of body movement. The microcomputer also receives various kinds of information including training conditions via an input device. Then, it displays the amount of autonomic nerve activity and the training conditions on a display device in a manner that connections between them are indicated.