UCLA study demonstrates use of magnetic force to manage chronic pain

[tao]

UCLA bioengineers have demonstrated that a gel-like material containing tiny magnetic particles could be used to manage chronic pain from disease or injury. Broadly, the study demonstrates the promising use of biomechanical forces that push and pull on cells to treat disease.

 

"Much of mainstream modern medicine centers on using pharmaceuticals to make chemical or molecular changes inside the body to treat disease," said Dino Di Carlo, UCLA professor of bioengineering and the principal investigator of the study. "However, recent breakthroughs in the control of forces at small scales have opened up a new treatment idea -- using physical force to kick-start helpful changes inside cells. There's a long way to go, but this early work shows this path toward so-called 'mechanoceuticals' is a promising one."

 

"Our results show that through exploiting 'neural network homeostasis,' which is the idea of returning a biological system to a stable state, it is possible to lessen the signals of pain through the nervous system," said Andy Kah Ping Tay, a recent UCLA doctoral graduate who was the lead author of the study. "Ultimately, this could lead to new ways to provide therapeutic pain relief."

 

To make the magnetized gel, they started with a polymer, hyaluronic acid, a gel-like material found naturally in the spinal cord and the brain, which helps provide structural support to cells in those parts of the body. The material is also produced artificially and used in cosmetics and beauty products as a filler and moisture barrier.

 

The researchers put tiny magnetic particles into the biocompatible gel. Next, they grew a type of primary neural cell -- dorsal root ganglion neurons -- in the gel.

 

In laboratory tests, they applied a magnetic field to generate a "pulling" force on the particles, which was transmitted through the gel to the embedded cells.

 

The researchers found that the magnetically induced mechanical forces led to an increase in calcium ions in the neurons. This influx of ions indicates that the neurons responded to the forces. By increasing the force steadily over time, the researchers found that the neurons adapted to the continuous stimulation by reducing the signals for pain.

 

In the study, the team suggested that the magnetic gel could be tailored with different biomaterials for therapies for cardiac and muscle disorders. These types of biomaterials could also be used in scientific studies to emulate concussions or other traumatic events where cells in the body are impacted by significant physical forces.

 

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[dufus]

Because adequate mechanical stimuli increase bone mass and improve fracture repair (Claes and Heigele, 1999; Ozcivici et al., 2010), mechanical intervention therapies, including whole-body vibration (WBV), are increasingly used to treat osteoporotic bone loss (Gómez-Cabello et al., 2012). ‘Low-magnitude high-frequency vibration’ (LMHFV) became of interest because many preclinical and clinical studies demonstrated its anabolic effects on healthy and osteoporotic bone (Rubin et al., 2004; Xie et al., 2006; Xie et al., 2008). LMHFV combines very low accelerations of ≤1 g (g, gravitational acceleration, 1 g=9.81 m/s²) with a high frequency, between 20 and 90 Hz, inducing extremely small strains of ~5–10 με (strain magnitude, symbol ε) in bone tissue; considerably less than the peak strains generated during activity (which are 2000–3000 με) (Xie et al., 2006). Thus it has been proposed that the mechanical signal driving the osteogenic response of bone cells might be oscillatory acceleration rather than the distortion of the bone matrix (Ozcivici et al., 2010). The mechanisms by which cells recognise and transduce mechanical signals are complex. A network of molecules are involved in mechanotransduction, including oestrogen receptor (ER)-mediated pathways and Wnt/β-catenin signalling (Liedert et al., 2006; Rubin et al., 2006).

http://dmm.biologists.org/content/8/1/93

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Sound/reson.html

 

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