Injecting A Cure For Migraine: Minimally Invasive Injection Tool For Wireless Implantable Neurostimulator

For the last two decades, a consistent statistic in the United States is that one out of every six people report experiencing at least one migraine every three months. The Neural Microsystems Laboratory at Arizona State University has developed a wireless implantable neurostimulator (WINS), which they believe can be used to treat these widespread, episodic attacks. This device is about the size of a grain of rice and contains micro circuitry that generates an electric current when exposed to ultrasound. One problem facing the lab is that there is no process to place the WINS inside of the human body. For this Honors Thesis/Creative Project, I invented a tool that can be used to inject the WINS into the body, while addressing key issues of positioning, repositioning, and orientation. After testing was conducted on an artificial skin model and imaged with an optical microscope, the implantation tool proved to be successful. The tool made it easy to inject the WINS perpendicular to an artificial occipital nerve for every trial of the testing, also maintaining a proper alignment of the device so that it could receive maximum exposure to external ultrasound. Successful testing of this prototype shows that it is ready to be redesigned for mass production so that it can deliver the WINS to as many victims of migraine attacks as possible.