Carbon Fiber “Microthread” Electrode Can Capture Electrical Signal from Single Neuron Firing
Researchers have come up with what they call a “stealthy neural interface” made from a single carbon fiber and coated with chemicals to make it resistant to proteins in the brain.
The new microthread electrode, designed to pick up signals from a single neuron as it fires, is only about 7 micrometers in diameter. That is the thinnest yet developed, and about 100 times as thin as the conventional metal electrodes widely used to study animal brains.
“We wanted to see if we could radically change implant technology,” says Takashi Kozai, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and the first author on the paper, published today in the journal Nature Materials. “We want to see an electrode that lasts 70 years.” Researchers need long-lasting electrodes in order to improve brain-machine interfaces.
These systems, in preliminary studies, have allowed paralyzed people to control robotic limbs or a computer mouse. By using electrodes to record the firing of individual brain cells, scientists have learned to decode these signals as representing the movement of a rat’s whiskers or a quadriplegic’s effort to move his arms
(via A Carbon-Fiber Electrode for a Better Connection to the Brain | MIT Technology Review)
![VA Medical Centers Working on Brain-Controlled Leg Prosthesis
a team of researchers from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Long Beach, California have [made] progress with a robotic leg prosthesis controlled by EEG signals.
As you might expect, things remain a bit limited at this point — not amounting to much more than the ability to start and stop — but the researchers say they’ve been able to achieve a 100 percent response rate with no “false alarms,” and that the results are promising enough to begin tackling additional degrees of freedom like turning and sitting.
…The system has so far only been tested on able-bodied individuals, [but] the researchers hope that it will eventually be able to aid those with spinal cord injuries and aid in rehabilitation.
(via Researchers tout progress with brain-controlled robotic legs — Engadget)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9twjzmVVw1qgpcs1o1_500.jpg)
VA Medical Centers Working on Brain-Controlled Leg Prosthesis
a team of researchers from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Long Beach, California have [made] progress with a robotic leg prosthesis controlled by EEG signals.
As you might expect, things remain a bit limited at this point — not amounting to much more than the ability to start and stop — but the researchers say they’ve been able to achieve a 100 percent response rate with no “false alarms,” and that the results are promising enough to begin tackling additional degrees of freedom like turning and sitting.
…The system has so far only been tested on able-bodied individuals, [but] the researchers hope that it will eventually be able to aid those with spinal cord injuries and aid in rehabilitation.
Researchers Restore Fine Motor Control to Paralyzed Patients Using Brain Computer Interface
Scientists at Northwestern University in Chicago, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, have successfully bypassed the spinal cord and restored fine motor control to paralyzed limbs using a brain-computer interface.
The researchers have created a neuroprosthesis that combines a brain-computer interface (BCI) that’s wired directly into 100 neurons in the motor cortex of the subject, and a functional electrical stimulation (FES) device that’s wired into the muscles of the subject’s arm. When the subject tries to move his arm or hand, that cluster of around 100 neurons activates, creating a stream of data which can then be read and analyzed by the BCI to predict what muscles the subject is trying to move, and with what level of force. This interpreted data is passed to the FES, which then triggers the right muscles to perform the desired movement.
(via Researchers create brain-computer interface that bypasses spinal cord injury paralysis | ExtremeTech)
