Researchers at the University of Oxford are leading a new six-year programme to develop brain implants and other cutting-edge solutions to treat chronic pain, which affects roughly 28 million people in the UK.
The £11 million Effective Pain Interventions with Neural Engineering (EPIONE) programme is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, bringing together world-leading experts to create “smart” therapies that aim to transform the management of chronic pain.
EPIONE will target the brain’s pain networks using a systems engineering approach. The programme recognises chronic pain as a disease of the nervous system, which is often caused by errors in how the brain processes signals during injury or periods of illness.
Professor Tim Denison of the Department of Engineering Science, who co-leads the programme, said: “EPIONE will develop ‘smart’ therapies for chronic pain that monitor the body and adjust treatment dynamically – rather than delivering fixed doses.
“We are including people with the lived experience of chronic pain to co-develop our technologies and research methods, especially how we explore the role of nocebo and placebo effects in novel interventions. Economics also factors into our work, as we want to ensure our technologies are viable for the NHS and beyond.”
Over the course of this programme, researchers plan to deliver a number of “world-first technologies”. These include an adaptive brain implant that can sense and respond to pain signals in real time, as well as a “closed-loop” drug delivery system that automatically adjusts medication based on patient needs. The drug delivery system is believed to minimise side effects and addiction risk. The team will also develop non-invasive ultrasound and magnetic stimulation technologies which are capable of targeting multiple regions of the brain simultaneously.
Professor Ben Seymour from the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience, who also co-leads the programme, said: “Neurotechnology has the potential to realise substantial impact on reducing the burden of chronic pain in the UK and worldwide.”EPIONE involves collaboration between Oxford’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering and UK universities including the University of Cambridge, University of Glasgow, and UCL, alongside NHS pain clinics. Industry partners include Oxford spinout Amber Therapeutics, co-founded by Professor Denison, whose Picostim-DyNeuMo deep brain stimulation device will provide the technological platform for the programme’s first clinical trials.
