Treating pain with magnetic fields

Scientists have designed a hydrogel loaded with magnetic particles and laboratory-grown neurons. By applying magnetic force, the researchers were able to reduce the pain signaling of the neurons.

When applied to neurons, a magnetic field can reduce the cells' pain signals, suggests a new study.

In the United States, chronic pain is "the most common cause of long-term disability."

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), over 76 million people in the U.S. — that is, approximately 1 in 4 people — have had an episode of pain that lasted for more than 24 hours.

Of these, 40 million have had severe pain. Such figures led the NIH to deem chronic pain "a major public health problem."

In this context, the search for new, more effective pain management therapies is ongoing and of vital importance. Now, bioengineers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have designed an innovative method that may succeed where other pain therapies have previously failed.

Researchers led by senior investigator Dino Di Carlo, a professor of bioengineering at UCLA, set out to investigate how magnetic force could be used to relieve pain.

The first author of the paper is Andy Kah Ping Tay, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University in California.