Gene Fridman on his freeform stimulator allowing for more neural stimulation possibilities

Dr. Gene Fridman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery and also has appointments with the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research is in the areas of bioinstrumentation and neural engineering.

In this episode we talk about his freeform nerual stimulator which allows for DC and any other waveforms without any electrolytic effects on the electrodes. This opens up many possibilities for neural stimulation. We also talk about his startup Aidar which is like a 'tricorder' all-in-one medical diagnostic tool.

This podcast is sponsored by CEITEC Nano, check out their Neurotech Device Manufacturing Capabilities here

Top 3 Takeaways:

• "The reason why they have to use pulses at the metal electrodes is that if you deliver electrical current for too long to a metal electrode that is implanted in the body, what you're going to get is you're going to get electrochemistry, the first thing that will happen is you're going to start forming bubbles because you're going to split water. It's electrolysis. So you clearly don't want to do that in the body. They have to use pulses charge balanced by phasic pulses otherwise, you're going to have these electrons jump across and cause chemical reactions"

• "By introducing hyperpolarizing current to the peripheral nerve what we're seeing is it's affecting the small caliber neurons much more so, which carry pain much more so than the larger neurons that carry other information. And so we're able to block pain at the peripheral nerve. We didn't know about this. It was a surprise to us."

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0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself better than I just did?"

3:00 Do you want to talk about your device able to talk to both ions and electrons in neurotech?

7:00 Was a DC bridge rectifier the inspiration for this?

9:15 What is possible with these new waveforms?

15:15 "How big is it? And why does it need to be that size?"

21:45 CEITEC Nano Ad Sponsorship

22:15 Do you want to talk about your startup company, Aidar?

24:30 Are you doing any nerve stuff with the 'tricorder?'

26:30 How are you able to manage the time with the startup?

27:45 How did you get the project's initial data?