Wireless Neural Implants
Ellen Hederick
March 14, 2019
Blog
Wireless Neural Implants
Stanford BioX team has come up with something amazing and never seen before. They have created tiny little device that can be wirelessly powered, implanted and used to trigger neurons as well as track the movements of a mouse, using the animals own body to transfer energy. This is the first device capable of delivering optics based on neve simulation in a fully implantable format. Meanwhile for people with severe neurological conditions such as parkinson's or epilepsy disease, this little wireless device may somebody help manage symptoms by sitting on the surface of the brain, monitoring its electrical activity and jolting it back to the equilibrium when something will go wrong. The new prototype device, named the Wireless Artifact-Free Neuromodulation Device (WAND). “UC Berkeley scientists who built it, isn’t the first implant isn’t the first to treat neurological conditions with targeted electrical stimulation. But it fixes a lot of the problems with earlier models such as size limitations and noisy data collection, according to research published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering on Monday”.
This suggests a new and fast moving path toward forward for treating some of the most widespread neurological disorders in the world. This device however has been tested on primates/animals but not yet on humans. This particular device is an improvement from other neurological implants because it works on a closed loop system. Specifically in this implant the array of electrodes is the first that can simultaneously interpret the brain's electrical activity and send out therapeutic shocks, and this will result in more specialized treatments that are fine-tuned to the specific brains needs, while other implants could only do one or the other.
Many science researchers and Universities have different opinions and different prototypes of this growing invention but all of them have similar objectives in what there mission for the wireless implant is. Researchers in Japan have developed a tiny implant (no bigger than the width of a coin), that could be used to change neural behavior. The researchers can implant the device several centimeters into the body and then they can activate it externally using an infrared light. This small device could make it easier for researchers to identify the role of a specific neural circuits in neurological diseases, helping them to develop brand new treatments. “The field of optogenetics involves activating neurons using light, and this method has helped scientists to learn more about complicated neural circuitry, and its role in disease. Typically, this approach involves optical implants that can deliver light to neurons, such as those in the brain”. In fact researchers have been able to control the behaviors of rats and mice using such optical implants. This technique may also have direct potential in areas as diverse as depression and spinal cord injuries. However, optical implants can sometimes and typically are very bulky and uncomfortable, and can be comparable to something heavy on the head like a football helmet. If optogenetics were ever able to be used therapeutically, most current implants would likely be too difficult for patients to use long term.
All of this new technology required around wireless neural implants is going to be a huge step in the medical and scientific world. All of the researchers and Universities studying these implants is going to be a really big deal once they start going out into the market and actual people getting to use them. Also all of this research that these scientists and universities have developed are going to be extremely helpful later on. Not just about the physical implant but all the research they have gathered about the brain and how they can make an implant to help neurological disorders. While this research will help develop the most current implant it will also help later in life when other scientists want to make improvements and make this current implant even better than before. Also other scientists from around the world can use this research to help develop other medical products that could help save lives. All of this knowledge can help lead to further discoveries in the medical world. This topic is very informative and very fun to read and learn about. I highly recommended looking into this subject because it is really interesting.
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