Company has agreed to provide its neuromodulation technology to NIH’s BRAIN Initiative.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative in 2013 to fund and accelerate the development and application of innovative technologies that will revolutionize our understanding of the human brain and lead to novel treatments for neurological diseases, which affect over 100 million Americans and rising. Participants include the US Food and Drug Administration, the National Science Foundation, DARPA, non-governmental foundations and research institutes, universities, and companies ranging from GE, Boston Scientific and GlaxoSmithKline to Google, Medtronic and others.

Abbott is the most recent drug maker to join the initiative. The company has pledged to provide its neuromodulation technology, including directional deep brain stimulation, spinal cord stimulation and dorsal root ganglion therapy, for investigation by BRAIN researchers in the treatment of neuropsychiatric conditions, chronic pain and disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.

Use of Abbott’s technologies will allow the researchers to obtain missing information with respect to the functioning of the nervous system and how the brain operates in patients with neurological conditions, according to Nick Langhals, Ph.D., a program director for neural engineering at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Abbott will benefit from further validation of neuromodulation its technologies.