A brain defibrillator: The race is on!

The race is on to make and market a defibrillator for the brain!

Here are some of the contestants.

1. This:

"Stroke thrombolysis: Is tissue plasminogen activator a defibrillator for the brain?" A M Buchan and T E Feasby, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2000 January 11; 162(1): 47–48. The authors are at the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Calgary.

2. This:

NeuroNexus Technologies, a six-year-old U-M spin-off, is doubling its physical footprint and hiring as many as eight new employees as it works to produce the next generation of deep-brain stimulators for clinical use…. The company's deep-brain stimulation system… won't be on the market for several years, he said. But it promises to provide a much more targeted source of stimulation than products currently on the market, which NeuroNexus Director of New Technologies Rio Vetter described as essentially a defibrillator for the brain.

3. This:

"Imagine a device like an automatic external defibrillator except for the brain," said first author Yusuf Tufail, who is now a postdoctoral associate at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. Published in the September issue of Nature Protocols, the article, "Ultrasonic Neuromodulation by Brain Stimulation with Transcranial Ultrasound," provides a guide for the further development and clinical application of ultrasonic neuromodulation.

BONUS: Video of the Umpqua Community College Bighorn Jazz combined with the Roseburg High Jazz band to perform the song "The Defibrillator":

BONUS: T.J. performs a different song of the same name, with words: