For people with spinal-cord injuries, it's more of a pain than almost anything else -- not being able to control their bladder function. Although the brain's ability to adjust to the world can help some patients' bodies learn to keep some urine in for a time, they still hardly have control over when they urinate.
Now, scientists are developing and testing implants that allow patients to control when they urinate and even get warnings about when their bladders are full.
I just heard a presentation on this at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. The technology has been tested in cats and is being tested in humans.
The challenge is to control not one but two things: the contraction of the bladder (which pushes urine out) and the sphincter, which controls whether the urine leaves the bladder. Both electrical signals and nerve blocks are helping scientists figure out how to make both happen together, said William C. de Groat, professor of pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh.
One "microstimulator" implant looks about as thin as a pin and is about half as tall as an AA battery.
I'm looking into writing a full story for Wired News about this topic, so keep an eye out if you want to learn more.
