Electrical Impedance Tomography & selective stimulation of vagus nerve
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Electrical Impedance Tomography imaging of functional anatomy and selective stimulation of fascicles within the vagus nerve
IRAS ID
276275
Contact name
Kirill Aristovich
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Universtiy College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Electroceuticals is a new field in which the goal is to treat a wide variety of medical diseases with electrical stimulation of autonomic nerves. A prime target for intervention is the cervical vagus nerve as it is easily surgically accessible and supplies many organs in the neck, thorax and abdomen. It would be desirable to stimulate selectively in order to avoid the off-target effects that currently occur. This has not been tried in the past, both because of limitations in available technology but also because, surprisingly, the fascicular organisation of the cervical vagus nerve is almost completely unknown. The aim of this research is to investigate the functional anatomy of fascicles in the cervical vagus nerve of humans. This will include defining innervation to the heart, lungs and recurrent laryngeal and, if possible, the oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver and gastrointestinal tract. It will be achieved by defining fascicle somatotopic functional anatomy with the new method of fast neural imaging with Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT). EIT is a novel imaging method in which reconstructed tomographic images of resistance changes related to the opening of ion channels over milliseconds can be produced using rings or arrays of external electrodes. In humans, using a non-penetrating nerve cuff with fast neural EIT, this will be performed for 30 minutes transiently during an operation to insert a vagal nerve stimulator for treatment of epilepsy and deliver images in response to activity such as respiration or the ECG.
REC name
London - Camden & Kings Cross Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/LO/0463
Date of REC Opinion
23 Aug 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion