A joint team of Lithuanian researchers and businesses behind the invention – credit KTU

Soon, people working sedentary jobs will be able to take advantage of the innovation created by Lithuanians and prevent troublesome back pain – a joint team of Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania researchers and JSC Abili created a prototype of an office chair that activates deep muscles and improves trunk stabilisation.

Research shows that many people spend almost 80 per cent of their working day sitting and at least half of that time in the same body position. The prolonged and invariable sitting posture is associated with lower back pain due to impaired musculoskeletal control.

For sedentary workers, it is often suggested to replace their normal work chairs with various unstable surfaces, such as physio balls, balance cushions. While these products activate the deep muscles due to their range of motion, they are not individually tailored to the needs of the user.

A team of scientists, Hominiseat, is developing a personalised sitting device controlled with feedback of trunk muscle activity. Scientific experiments in which muscle, brain activities, and body movements of sedentary workers were analysed confirmed the suitability of the chair in the work environment to prevent musculoskeletal disorders caused by prolonged sitting.

Prolonged sitting is harmful to health

Ieva Aleknaitė-Dambrauskienė, a member of Hominiseat, a physiotherapist, and a researcher at the Biomechatronics Laboratory of the Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) Institute of Mechatronics, states that many people who work in sedentary jobs complain about lower back pain. Often these individuals also rest at home while sitting.

“Sitting is not inherently bad, but a prolonged being in one position, which varies very little throughout the day, eventually causes back pain. This problem exists not only in Lithuania – statistics show that about 37 per cent of Europeans work in sedentary jobs, and the number is even higher in the United States,” says a KTU researcher.

Sitting on the usual non-ergonomic chairs, which can be found in most of the offices around the world, can cause serious health problems.

“Sitting on a regular office chair impairs cognitive function, which reduces productivity,” says the researcher.

Employees who experience back pain due to faulty posture find it difficult to concentrate, make decisions, and absorb textual information. According to the KTU researcher, the muscle-stimulating chair developed by Hominiseat does not allow poor posture because the brain centre responsible for the balance is constantly activated by nerve impulses.

This office chair is exceptional

Compared to other ergonomic chairs, the invention will change the user’s posture by stimulating the deep muscles of the trunk. The seat of other office chairs on the market can move freely around its axis, the degree of instability is not adjustable, and there is no possibility to change the amplitude of motion. The chair, designed by a joint team of scientists, will have these functions, so the ergonomic seat will be able to adapt to the safe level of instability and cater to the needs of each person.

“Although we can already see chairs which work on a similar principle to our seating device, our product is the first of a kind in the world,” says Aleknaitė-Dambrauskienė.

The ergonomic office chair, presented at the virtual exhibition Technorama 2021 organised by KTU, is being developed incorporating the latest technologies. The wireless sensor captures trunk muscle activity, and the seat adjusts the user’s posture based on these parameters. According to the Hominiseat team, the data on the user’s muscle activity and body asymmetry could be used as fitness equipment, yet this will become apparent after the prototype is produced and tested in real conditions.

It is projected that the device could function as both a passive and an active device: the user would be able to adjust the movements of the seat himself, and the invention could move by stimulating the deep muscles of the human trunk. It is no accident that the activation of the lumbar muscles was chosen – the researchers believe that working in a sedentary job has the greatest effect on this group of muscles: the muscles that stabilise the spine undergo atrophy, and the nutrition of the intervertebral discs is disrupted.

“When deep trunk muscles perform a stabilising function, maintains optimal posture, then the forces on the spine and passive structures are not so damaging,” emphasises the physiotherapist.

The researcher emphasises that in the event of a disruption of one deep muscle group, other structures, such as the superficial back muscles, take over the work. Then there is constant tension, followed by back pain and other pathologies.

The prototype is being developed

If this innovation were made available to the general public, people who work sedentary jobs or spend a large part of the day in a static position would be less likely to experience the negative effects of poor posture.

“The benefits for the consumer would be huge – a person working in a sedentary job would have less back pain, he would be more active throughout the day, which would lead to higher work productivity and better results,” believes Aleknaitė-Dambrauskienė.

The researcher points out that the seating device could be mass-produced in Lithuania, but the market demand abroad should be even higher. Although there are enough materials and manpower in the country for the extensive implementation of the project, more attention to the employee’s health and quality work equipment is paid abroad. The prototype of the ergonomic chair project is already being prepared, so the next step is testing.

After winning second place in the Wanted: Life Sciences Innovator competition of the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (MITA), the KTU Hominiseat team has expanded. Currently, specialists from the fields of health, design, electronics, biomechanics, and employees of JSC Abili are working on the ergonomic chair project.

“Our team is diverse, as the development of such a product requires various knowledge and experience, and only in this way can we achieve the required results. Each specialist has their tasks which they perform best; constant communication and refinement of ideas allows each team member to focus as much as possible on their specialisation and make fewer mistakes,” says I. Aleknaitė-Dambrauskienė.

Brain activation of the lingual gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus, areas involved in pain perception, was significantly decreased after viewing nostalgic images compared to control images. CREDIT Zhang et al., JNeurosci 2021

Reflecting on fond memories goes a step beyond making you feel warm and fuzzy: nostalgia can reduce pain perception. Nostalgia decreases activity in pain-related brain areas and decreases subjective ratings of thermal pain, according to research recently published in JNeurosci.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences measured the brain activity of adults with fMRI while the participants rated the nostalgia levels of images and rated the pain of thermal stimuli. The nostalgic images featured scenes and items from an average childhood, like a popular candy, cartoon TV show, and schoolyard game. Images in the control condition depicted corresponding scenes and items from modern life. Viewing nostalgic images reduced pain ratings compared to viewing control images, with the strongest effect on low-intensity pain.

Viewing nostalgic images also reduced activity in the left lingual gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus, two brain regions implicated in pain perception. Activity in the thalamus, a brain region involved in relaying information between the body and the cortex, was linked to both nostalgia and pain ratings; the thalamus may integrate nostalgia information and transmit it to pain pathways. Nostalgia may be a drug-free way to alleviate low levels of pain, like headaches or mild clinical pain.

A synthetic substance analogous to cannabidiol prevents the neuropathic pain caused by chemotherapy. Neuropathy is a relatively common adverse effect of chemotherapy drugs and can lead to the interruption of clinical cancer treatment.

A study that reached this conclusion was conducted in Brazil involving paclitaxel, a widely used chemotherapy drug available to patients with various types of cancer via Brazil’s national health system (SUS). An article on the study is published in the journal Neurotherapeutics. 

The study showed that administration of the cannabidiol analog to mice in combination with the chemotherapy drug improved cancer treatment with no adverse effects and did not cause dependence.

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a natural chemical found in the cannabis plant. It does not contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient that produces a marijuana “high”.

“Paclitaxel causes nerve damage, which is normally associated with neuropathic pain. According to estimates, 80% of patients who use paclitaxel develop this kind of chronic pain to a greater or lesser extent. It’s a highly important clinical problem, and nothing works in these patients to relieve the pain. In many cases, the chemotherapy has to be interrupted,” said Thiago Mattar Cunha, penultimate author of the article and a researcher at the Center for Research on Inflammatory Diseases (CRID).

CRID is one of several Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) funded by FAPESP. It is hosted by the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP-USP). 

The study was supported by FAPESP via a Thematic Project and the National Science and Technology Institute (INCT) for Translational Medicine, one of the INCTs in São Paulo state jointly funded by FAPESP and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), a federal government agency.

The cannabidiol analog, called PECS-101, has a similar structure to cannabidiol but with the addition of fluoride, which according to the scientists makes it three to ten times more powerful than cannabidiol. It was synthesized by Raphael Mechoulam, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and leading cannabis researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.

“Our research group partnered with Mechoulam and began to investigate the effects of the substance. We hold the international patent on PECS-101, which is licensed to a United States company. We continue to study its effects and receive no funding from the company in question,” said Francisco Silveira Guimarães, a professor at FMRP-USP and last author of the article.

Help with treatment

Before they could find out whether PECS-101 prevented neuropathic pain, the researchers first showed that paclitaxel induced it in an animal model. They then studied the action mechanism of PECS-101 to make sure no pain occurred.

“We observed that the drug’s action mechanism occurs via a cellular receptor called PPARy, and not via the endogenous cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2. Previous research had already shown that drugs that interact with PPARy have anti-tumor and anti-neuropathy effects,” said Nicole Rodrigues da Silva, a researcher in the Department of Pharmacology at FMRP-USP and first author of the article.

The researchers themselves bred the mice used in the study. Some of the mice were genetically modified so as not to have the receptors. “In the animals without this type of receptor, PECS-101 had no effect,” Silva said.

PPARy receptors are expressed in several cell types. In the study, the researchers analyzed their action in macrophages, because these immune system cells are closely linked to neuropathic pain. “Macrophages are important to the neuropathic pain caused by paclitaxel,” Cunha said. “A neuroinflammatory mechanism has been described, and there’s evidence that PPARy agonists have anti-inflammatory effects. Other evidence also suggests cannabidiol can act via these receptors.”

However, it was necessary to demonstrate that PECS-101 also helped the chemotherapy, or at least did not hinder it. “To do this, we performed another experiment, this time involving female mice with induced breast cancer, and found that PECS-101 not only didn’t interfere with the effect of paclitaxel but also appeared to improve the cancer treatment. We confirmed this experiment by obtaining the same positive result in cultured human cells,” Silva said.

The study also showed that PECS-101, like cannabidiol, does not cause dependence.

According to Guimarães, reports of the potential anti-cancer effects of cannabidiol can be found in the scientific literature. “It, therefore, wasn’t a complete surprise to find that PECS-101 also has this property,” he said. “The most positive finding is that it prevents neuropathic pain. In other words, pain doesn’t even happen. In addition, it enhances the treatment. This undoubtedly justifies the hope that chemotherapy with paclitaxel can become more effective.”