On Oct. 26, 2022, researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering will now be one step closer to developing cutting-edge bioelectronic medicine technology to better understand and treat chronic diseases and conditions modulated by the autonomic nervous system thanks to a new $11.7 million center that, over three years, will develop modular open-source implantable device systems to monitor and stimulate autonomic nerves inside the body.

The Center for Autonomic Nerve Recording and Stimulation Systems (CARSS) will be funded through the National Institutes of Health’s Common Fund. CARSS will be part of the Human Open Research Neural Engineering Technologies (HORNET) initiative within the Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC) program. The center will be co-led by Shelly and Ofer Nemirovsky Chair in Convergent Bioscience, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Vice Dean for Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Ellis Meng, in collaboration with co-principal investigators Victor Pikov from Medipace and Raja Hitti from Med-Ally.

The CARSS neurotechnology platform will include an implantable pulse generator (IPG), a pacemaker-like device implanted in the body, for example in the vicinity of the clavicle, to apply electrical pulses directly to the patient’s autonomic nervous system. The CARSS system also includes an external charger and Bluetooth controllers that the physician and the patient can operate, as well as an assortment of interoperable and implantable leads for stimulation and sensing, including tiny cuffs to be attached to autonomic nerves.

The patient and clinician controller will function via smartphone and tablet using the CARSS software. The end result will be an open-source system that can be reconfigured to suit various bioelectronic medicine applications.