TIN ACT Treatment project with Cochlear and the












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TIN ACT Treatment project with Cochlear and the University of Utrecht Tinnitus management through electrical stimulation in cochlear implant users Kelly ASSOULY 1
Academic background ● Born in Lyon Strasbourg ● Preparatory classe for engineering school ● Graduated as a biomedical engineer Lyon 2
Academic background Master in Micro and Nanoelectronics Biomedical engineering school Télécom Physique Strasbourg Specialized in Technology of the information for the Health Master Innovative therapies lab on chip embedded system ● Biology ● Microsystem, electronics ● Simulation and programming 3
Internships in 3 neuroscience laboratories Center of Neuroscience of Lyon, France Translational Neural Engineering Lab Geneva, Switzerland AASDAP Sao Paulo, Brazil 4
Internships between 2016 and 2017 ● Internship in the Center of Neuroscience of Lyon Investigation of emotion regulation in meditative states Work: carrying out of three different experiments (MRI, EEG, questionnaires) ● Internship in the AASDAP Functional electrical stimulation on paraplegic patients Work: improvement of all the motor evaluation to acquisition from analysis and interpretation of EMGs data 5
Master thesis March - September 2018 Development and clinical validation of a medical device prototype to alleviate restless legs syndrome symptoms Translational Neural Engineering, Campus Biotech 6
Restless legs syndrome (RLS) also called Willis–Ekbom disease (WED) = prevalent chronic neurological disorder Symptoms an overwhelming urge to move, often in conjunction with unpleasant sensations, usually in the legs during rest and inactivity, only present in the evening or at night Secondary effects impaired sleep risk of depression and anxiety risk of cardiovascular disease > 75% RLS sufferers reported sleeprelated symptoms 2, 5% of the general population 5% in USA population Assouly Kelly - Master thesis 2018 7
Restless legs syndrome Mechanisms iron defiency dopaminergic abnormality dopamine secretion circadian rythm nervous signal contraction Fig 1. Schema of dysfunction of spinal circuit involved in RLS Central and peripheral nervous system excitability in restless legs syndrome, Giuseppe Lanza, Sleep Medicine, 2017, Vol 31, p. 49 -60 Alteration of these mechanisms are supported by evidence from animals, imaging and human postmortem studies but remains misunderstood. Assouly Kelly - Master thesis 2018 88
A new therapy New solution: Provide information to the central nervous system as a counter-stimulation movement information Observation nervous stimulation reproduce this effect with the activation of nerve fibers Fig 2. Illustration of a leg movement Passeport Santé symptoms reduction by leg movement Fig 3. Schema of nervous system Assouly Kelly - Master thesis 2018 Life Science 9
Conclusion AIM: Develop a vibration device to alleviate restless legs syndrome symptoms After an experiment to characterize the proprioceptive performances of the vice carried out on 10 healthy subjects and a statistical analysis We disposed of a tendon vibration system that induces proprioceptive illusions in the leg - adapted to all morphologies small size wearable functional easy to use Fig. Final prototype. Assouly device Kelly - Master thesis 2018 10
Ph. D project started in November (4 YEARS) Mechelen, Belgium Tinnitus treatment Electrical stimulation in cochlear implant users ● State of the art on cochlear implant and tinnitus ● Electrical stimulation settings ● Experiment set up ● Clinical study in the UMC ● Analysis and interpretation of the results Still lots of things to do. . . Utrecht, Netherlands 11
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