The device (which doesn’t have an official name yet) is an implantable neurostimulator that uses micro-electrical pulses to increase tear production. It’s designed to treat more than a simple case of dry eyes you get from staring at a screen for too long. Many people have chronically dry eyes due to medication side effects, autoimmune disease, or hormone problems that cause the lacrimal glands to under-produce tears. This can lead to vision problems or corneal damage over time. Eye drops can offer a temporary fix for some people, but it’s not as good as the real thing.
Your lacrimal glands are located toward the upper outer section of each orbital and produce a slippery mixture of oils, water, proteins, and mucus that lubricate the eyes. It sluices down the tear ducts and is spread across the eye with each blink. The lacrimal glands are the target of Oculeve’s neurostimulator. It’s implanted via injection or with a small incision below the eyebrow or in the nasal cavity. It can then shoot short electrical pulses into the lacrimal glands to kick start tear production. Basically, it shocks your face and makes you cry, but that’s a good thing in this case. Promise!
So let’s say you’ve got a problem with chronic eyeball dryness, and you have the Oculeve neurostimulator implanted. How do you use it? The company is developing a remote control that will be able to adjust tear production on the fly. Simply press a button and your lacrimal gland gets boosted into high gear. The micro-electric pulses should not be powerful enough to cause discomfort.
It might be controlled wirelessly, but what about power? It’s not like you can plug a microUSB into your face to recharge the battery. According to Oculeve’s Michael Ackermann, it will have inductive wireless chargingtechnology that can juice up the device’s tiny battery. You can see above that about a third of the neurostimulator’s total length is taken up by the battery. I suppose that would require holding an inductive charging coil uncomfortably close to your face for a little bit. Oculeve isn’t saying how often it will need to be recharged, but the entire device is roughly 1 cm long, so the battery can’t have much capacity.
Oculeve is currently going through the process of getting regulatory approval in the US. It’s running clinical trials to show the device is safe and effective, which can be a long process because of the understandably strict standards for medical devices. The company will also seek Canadian and EU regulatory approval in the near future.
