ONKOCET Ltd. has exhibited the devices from its portfolio on the MEDTEC UK exhibition in Birmingham, April 2011 through our partner Medical & Partners.
Transcranial stimulation is electric stimulation of the brain through the skull cap. TES was first studied in 1902 by S. Leduc, a French researcher, to induce electronarcosis. This study was inspired by a rather a disputable assumption that pulsed electric stimulation of the brain might induce a narcotic state in humans and animals without undesirable side effects. The experimental basis of such assumption came from an inhibitory effect of electric pulses on conduction of peripheral nerves.
If this assumption were valid, TES-induced narcosis would be very attractive because electrical narcosis avoid toxic effects of narcotic drugs. It was suggested that electrical narcosis appears and disappears synchronously with electric stimulation on and off, and that it is free of any side effects.
The prospects of TES-induced narcosis seemed so promising that research on electrical narcosis was continued until the 1970`s. Electrical narcosis (later, electrical sleeping) was studied by physicians and engineers from France, Russia, the United States, and other countries. A number of scientific societies were founded. For example, the Neuroeletrical Society of the USA, the European Society of Electric Sleeping and Electroanalgesia, the All-Union Society of Electric Sleeping and Electroanalgesia. However, these societies came to virtual extinction when it had been shown that electrical sleeping is ineffective; transcranial electric narcosis closely resembles electro-shock, and it is rather dangerous.
In the 1970`s, there was a number of clinical trials of the TES-induced electroanalgesia. These tests gave rise to the technical requirements for the output signals of TES devices. The Electronarkon-1, LENAR, and their modifications were designed to meet these requirements.
It is interesting to note that although these devices were designed for electroanalgesia, their brand names are derived from the term narcosis. For example, in Russia, the abbreviation LENAR means therapeutic narcosis, despite the fact that this device was never intended to provide narcosis.