(398) Fully-implantable, wireless technology for optogenetic control of bladder sensory neurons

Abstract

Bladder pain and dysfunction are sources of profound debilitation for millions of people in the United States with interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome, overactive bladder, and neurogenic bladder. Current treatments for these disorders are often ineffective and do not address the underlying pathology. A substantial barrier to the development of improved therapeutics is insufficient access to peripheral mechanisms by which the bladder can be controlled. Our preliminary efforts have aimed at developing a suite of technologies that use a combination of peripherally-implanted, wireless optoelectronic systems for monitoring and control of bladder activity. Our hardware and interfaces use soft, fully-implantable microscale devices with advanced design features specifically configured for essentially permanent interfacing with the pelvic nerve. This technology has provided unique access to bladder functionality, thus enabling novel insight into the mechanisms of bladder control and pain. We have shown using this new technology the ability to wirelessly electrically stimulate and record bladder function through pelvic nerve activity. Additionally, we have shown the ability control bladder function through the viral delivery of excitatory and inhibitory optogenetic channels. This work was supported in part by a grant from GSK (GlaxoSmithKline).