Soft robotic device stimulates muscles, sparks hope for ALS and MS patients

Today, muscle atrophy is often unavoidable when you can’t move due to severe injury, old age or diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS). However, Harvard researchers see hope in soft robotics that could someday stretch and contract the muscles of patients unable to do so themselves.

The Harvard engineers tested a new mechanostimulation system on mice, successfully preventing or assisting in their recovery from muscle atrophy. The team implanted the “soft robotic device” on a mouse’s hind limb, which they immobilized in a cast-like enclosure for around two weeks. While the control group’s untreated muscles wasted away as expected, the actively stimulated muscles showed reduced degradation. The researchers believe their system can eventually lead to implants helping humans with atrophy.

Its promise stems from its ability to induce a small mechanical muscle strain that mirrors natural stimulation during exercise. Moreover, while keeping atrophy at bay, the device didn’t lead to any severe tissue inflammation or damage.

“There is a good chance that distinct soft robotic approaches with their unique effects on muscle tissue could open up disease or injury-specific mechano-therapeutic avenues,” said David Mooney, Ph.D., the paper’s senior author and Harvard’s Wyss Institute engineering …read more