Blood pressure control with selective vagal nerve stimulation.
Hypertension is a large burden to patient health and health care costs. Despite various options, > 30% of patients do not respond sufficiently to medical treatment. Mechanoreceptors in the aortic arch relay blood pressure (BP) levels through vagal nerve (VN) fibers to the brainstem and trigger the baroreflex, lowering the BP. Selective electrical stimulation of these nerve fibers reduced BP in rats. PressureStim is designed to localize and stimulate these fibers inside the VN without inadvertent stimulation of non-baroreceptive fibers causing side effects like bradycardia and bradypnea. PressureStim is unique in also controlling release of specific proteins known to lower blood pressures including tropoelastin known to increase elasticity in the aorta and other peripheral blood vessels.
Blood pressure control
PressureStim seeks to develop a novel method for selective vagus nerve stimulation to reduce high blood pressure (hypertension) without triggering bradycardia or bradypnea.
Baroreceptor compound activity is localized using multiple non-invasive bioelectric sensors with information sent to a microprocessor that then delivers a customized bioelectric signaling sequence via quad polar stimulation near the barofibers. Constant feedback loops adjust and vary the stimulation pulse, width and duration.