Skip to main content
Vai all'homepage della Commissione europea (si apre in una nuova finestra)
italiano it
CORDIS - Risultati della ricerca dell’UE
CORDIS

Selective Sensory Vagal Interface: a bionic platform for internal organ modulation

Obiettivo

Most organ functions unfold beneath our awareness. We sense the heart, gut, and vessels through interoception, yet this sensing rarely reaches perception; instead, afferent messages tune reflexes that set heart rate, blood pressure, and metabolic tone. In disease and chronic dysregulation, these pathways are corrupted. If we can encode the right sensory messages, we can steer those reflexes – and organ function. Two prominent dysregulations are hypertension and obesity – each affects >1 billion people, drives premature mortality, and often resists durable control despite lifestyle change and multi-drug therapy.
To address this need, I will develop VisceraLink: a sensory-first interface on organ-specific vagal branches, paired with an actuator that reproduces natural mechanical signals the brain already understands – enabling organ-specific, feedback-guided autonomic control.
Two tracks structure the work. Cardiovascular: engage the baroreflex via the aortic depressor pathway to reduce arterial pressure. Metabolic: engage vagovagal reflexes via gastric branches to adjust motility, satiety, and metabolic tone. I will map and select branch targets, redirect them into living biologic grafts that reinnervate to form a sensory hub, and integrate a programmable actuator to deliver tonic and pulsatile distension that drives the intended reflexes.
The program targets translation-critical steps: branch selection, construction of the biohybrid sensory interface, integration of an implant-ready biomimetic actuator, and a clear input-to-effect map for closed-loop use. Out-of-surgery preclinical testing will confirm durability, usability, and safety, positioning VisceraLink for early human evaluation.
If successful, VisceraLink establishes a first-in-kind platform for selective, intuitive, and repeatable autonomic modulation, a practical way to write the body’s visceral code, delivering organ-specific therapies for resistant hypertension and obesity, scalable to other conditions.

Campo scientifico (EuroSciVoc)

Questo progetto non è ancora stato classificato con EuroSciVoc.
Suggerisci i campi scientifici che ritieni più rilevanti e aiutaci a migliorare il nostro servizio di classificazione.

Parole chiave

Programma(i)

Argomento(i)

Meccanismo di finanziamento

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

Vedi tutti i progetti finanziati nell’ambito di questo schema di finanziamento

Invito a presentare proposte

(si apre in una nuova finestra) ERC-2026-STG

Vedi tutti i progetti finanziati nell’ambito del bando

Istituzione ospitante

MEDIZINISCHE UNIVERSITAET WIEN
Contributo netto dell'UE
€ 2 210 625,00
Indirizzo
SPITALGASSE 23
1090 Wien
Austria
Regione
Ostösterreich Wien Wien
Tipo di attività
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Collegamenti
Costo totale
€ 2 210 625,00

Beneficiari (1)