MINNEAPOLIS — Dr. Sayeed Ikramuddin is no stranger to weight-loss surgery. He's done it at least 3,000 times.

But the University of Minnesota surgeon knows that some people, no matter how overweight, can't fathom the idea of having their internal organs snipped, tied or rearranged.

Now he's trying to find out if an implantable device can help them lose weight by interfering with their ability to feel hunger.

This summer, Ikramuddin plans to implant the device, made by a St. Paul, Minn., company called EnteroMedics, in up to 30 volunteers as part of an international research study.

It's a new frontier in obesity research: focusing on the parts of the brain that control the urge to eat.

Obesity has become a huge issue not only for individuals who struggle to lose weight, but also with the increased healthcare costs from weight-related medical problems, such as diabetes. With 134 million Americans overweight or obese, some are betting the solution may lie in a new kind of technology that literally taps into the power of the mind.

More than 80 potential recruits showed up this month to hear about the experiment at the University of Minnesota, one of 15 sites testing the device. "The room was full each time," said Ikramuddin, who hosted three information sessions. "Everybody wants to lose weight. The issue is, how?"

In this case, a pacemakerlike device is inserted just beneath the skin near the rib cage. It sends electrical impulses to block the vagus nerve, which tells the brain when the stomach is empty. The idea, in effect, is to trick the brain in order to curb the appetite.

So far, attempts to use technology to tame hunger have been hit or miss. In 2005, Medtronic shelved one such device, designed to make people feel full by stimulating the stomach, after tests showed it didn't help them lose weight.

Yet last year, when scientists at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis tested a nerve-stimulation device for depression, they discovered that many of the subjects unexpectedly lost weight, too.

The EnteroMedics device, known as VBLOC, has shown some promise in small studies. The latest, released June 19, tracked 12 obese patients who had the device for a year and found that they lost an average of 29 percent of their "excess weight."

In a separate study, Mayo Clinic researchers, who helped develop the device, found an average weight loss of 15 percent in six months.

Now the company has set out to prove its worth in a study with 300 participants, in hopes of winning approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Mark Knudson, who founded EnteroMedics, said he saw a "huge unmet need" when he came up with the idea for the device.

An estimated 64 million Americans are obese, and the most effective treatment — bypass surgery — can be unpleasant and risky, with strict diets (liquids and purees for several weeks) and nasty side effects if patients eat the wrong things.

Knudson, who has made a career inventing medical devices, was looking for a kinder, gentler and more high-tech solution. With a device, "the anatomy is not permanently altered," he said. "It doesn't require them to undergo a permanent and onerous lifestyle change."

Scientists have long suspected that some people overeat because of a faulty connection in the brain. They don't get the message that they're full, so "they just don't know when to stop eating," Knudson said.

He and his colleagues focused on the vagus nerve, which sends messages between the digestive system and brain.

Years ago, doctors discovered that cutting the vagus nerve — once a common treatment for peptic ulcers — could also cause weight loss.

Even today, they're not sure why, said Dr. Charles Billington, an obesity researcher at the University of Minnesota and VA Medical Center who is a consultant on the EnteroMedics study. That discovery has fueled interest by several companies in finding ways to manipulate the vagus nerve.

"We realized that you needed to turn that nerve off ... or at least turn it down," Knudson said. "That's what we did."

The device, connected to the nerve by wires, pulses on and off every five minutes while the patient is awake.

"It's like a stoplight for the nerve," Knudson said. "It prevents the signals from the stomach and the rest of your gastrointestinal tract from going up to the brain and telling the brain that you're hungry."

The result: "It allows patients to feel that feeling of fullness and push back from the table sooner," he said.

He estimates the overall cost will be about $35,000.

— Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.