Brain-computer interfaces and other technologies that rely on reading and stimulating the brain require electrodes to obtain and deliver signals, as well as a way to transmit those signals from within the brain. Electric wires have usually served as the method of connectivity, but they create serious challenges, including a potential for infection, safety issues, and lack of discreetness. Wireless technologies have a lot of promise, but most approaches require a battery or another source of energy to power an implant to beam data back and forth from deep within the brain.
Researchers at Purdue University have now developed a brain-reading implant that’s incredibly small and that doesn’t need any onboard batteries to power it. Instead, the device, which the researchers say is about the size of a piece of dust, relies on externally delivered electromagnetic waves to power it. It’s conceptually similar to how wireless charging works in some modern smartphones. The implant was produced from a commercially available electronic chip that was modified to include microelectrodes.
The device is able to gather electric signals from a number of nerve endings at the same time. It can also be flexible, an important point for implants positioned within tissue resembling gelatin. A tiny antenna works as the energy harvester to power the system.
“The main challenges are to operate such a wireless neural interface system with a small and flexible chip at a very low power and yet high data rate,” said Saeed Mohammadi, one of the researchers on the project. “We need a high data rate to be able to read signals from thousands of neurons using a single implant chip. At the same time, we need to operate the system at very low power for safety and size reasons.”
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