Medical Technology on the Bleeding Edge
The device used by
Lipton addresses a problem more often treated by
drugs. People who frequently experience migraines
may receive a preventative drug. Those who have
migraines periodically may take both a preventative
as well as an acute drug taken at the time the
headache appears.
In fact, acute
drug therapy, typically a class of agents known as "triptans,"
is the most common form of migraine treatment.
However, only 50 to 60 percent of migraine sufferers
in the U.S. respond favorably to prescription
drug-based treatments.
Some migraines are
preceded by a sensory event known as an "aura."
Patients within this category of migraine sufferers
-- roughly 30 percent -- describe seeing flashing
lights or shooting stars and may also experience
tingling, prickling or numbness in their fingers
followed by intense pain, nausea, sensitivity to
light and sound and even vomiting.
"For some, that's
a signal to them that the pain is going to hit soon.
Most people who get this particular type of headache
don't have the aura, but there is a subset that
does," said Dr. Linda Porter, program director at
the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and
Stroke at the National Institutes of Health, who
said she has not had an opportunity to examine the
study's results in detail.
The aura, Porter
told TechNewsWorld, is now thought to be a trigger
for the pain.
"Through
scientific study we recognize the aura to be ... a
wave of excitability and then inhibition in cortical
electrical signaling, and that can occur in
different places in the brain. For some people, this
occurs in the visual cortex, and the person will
have a visual event. If it happens in the part of
the brain where touch sensation is processed, then
they may get tickling or tingling. But it is
basically that wave that they think irritates the
nerves that supply the coverings over the brain --
meninges. That's where the headache occurs. Those
nerves carry the pain sensation," she explained.
Magnetized Pulse
The device,
developed by Neuralieve, a medical technology
company, works by creating a focused magnetic pulse
that passes non-invasively through the skull and
induces an electric current that sends signals to
disrupt the abnormal brainwaves.
"My understanding
is that this device is trying to stop that cortical
spreading depression or that wave of electrical
signaling in the brain. The device would be applied
at the time of the aura, so it would be an acute
treatment, not a preventive treatment. People would
have to apply it each time they get a migraine,"
Porter pointed out.
If it works, it
seems like it would alleviate the pain very quickly,
Porter noted, but the user would have to know when
an aura was coming or have the device with him or
her at the time of the aura to hopefully prevent the
headache.
The TMS-based
device would not replace use of all migraine drugs,
but it could replace the use of some drugs for some
individuals, she acknowledged.
"It looks like it
has some effectiveness. Whether this is going to
replace all medications for all people, I think
we're getting ahead of ourselves to say something
like that. But [from the information available], it
looks like it has potential," Porter said.
