Researchers in Germany and the UK have used extrusion-based 3D printing of silicone rubber to build a soft implant that cools the surface of the rodent cortex while recording its electrical activity, and showed that the local cooling suppressed epileptiform activity. The work asks whether cooling the seizure zone could control focal epilepsy that drugs fail to manage. The implant packs temperature-control components and recording electrodes into a soft device that sits on the cortical surface. Connected to an autonomous external driver unit, it rapidly establishes stable, localized cooling while recording electrocorticography (ECoG), signals taken directly from the brain's surface. In a rodent model with seizures induced by 4-aminopyridine, local cooling suppressed epileptiform activity. The researchers say the approach could help move focal cooling therapy toward the clinic, but results so far come only from animal experiments.
