New brain-machine interface implant

[DocM]

Coolness & potential benefits aside - implant is in the users head. Li-Ion battery is in the implant. What if it pulls a thermal runaway?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130228093829.htm

Novel Wireless Brain Sensor

Feb. 28, 2013 ? In a significant advance for brain-machine interfaces, engineers at Brown University have developed a novel wireless, broadband, rechargeable, fully implantable brain sensor that has performed well in animal models for more than a year. They describe the result in the Journal of Neural Engineering and at a conference this week.[/b]

A team of neuroengineers based at Brown University has developed a fully implantable and rechargeable wireless brain sensor capable of relaying real-time broadband signals from up to 100 neurons in freely moving subjects. Several copies of the novel low-power device, described in the Journal of Neural Engineering, have been performing well in animal models for more than year, a first in the brain-computer interface field. Brain-computer interfaces coud help people with severe paralysis control devces with their thoughts.

Arto Nurmikko, professor of engineering at Brown University who oversaw the device's invention, is presenting it this week at the 2013 International Workshop on Clinical Brain-Machine Interface Systems in Houston.

"This has features that are somewhat akin to a cell phone, except the conversation that is being sent out is the brain talking wirelessly," Nurmikko said.

Neuroscientists can use such a device to observe, record, and analyze the signals emitted by scores of neurons in particular parts of the animal model's brain.

Meanwhile, wired systems using similar implantable sensing electrodes are being investigated in brain-computer interface research to assess the feasibility of people with severe paralysis moving assistive devices like robotic arms or computer cursors by thinking about moving their arms and hands.

This wireless system addresses a major need for the next step in providing a practical brain-computer interface," said neuroscientist John Donoghue, the Wriston Professor of Neuroscience at Brown University and director of the Brown Institute for Brain Science.

Tightly packed technology

In the device, a pill-sized chip of electrodes implanted on the cortex sends signals through uniquely designed electrical connections into the device's laser-welded, hermetically sealed titanium "can." The can measures 2.2 inches (56 mm) long, 1.65 inches (42 mm) wide, and 0.35 inches (9 mm) thick. That small volume houses an entire signal processing system: a lithium ion battery, ultralow-power integrated circuits designed at Brown for signal processing and conversion, wireless radio and infrared transmitters, and a copper coil for recharging -- a "brain radio." All the wireless and charging signals pass through an electromagnetically transparent sapphire window.

In all, the device looks like a miniature sardine can with a porthole.

But what the team has packed inside makes it a major advance among brain-machine interfaces, said lead author David Borton, a former Brown graduate student and postdoctoral research associate who is now at Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne in Switzerland.

"What makes the achievement discussed in this paper unique is how it integrated many individual innovations into a complete system with potential for neuroscientific gain greater than the sum of its parts," Borton said. "Most importantly, we show the first fully implanted microsystem operated wirelessly for more than 12 months in large animal models -- a milestone for potential [human] clinical translation."

The device transmits data at 24 Mbps via 3.2 and 3.8 Ghz microwave frequencies to an external receiver. After a two-hour charge, delivered wirelessly through the scalp via induction, it can operate for more than six hours.

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[Shiranui]

Coolness & potential benefits aside - implant is in the users head. Li-Ion battery is in the implant. What if it pulls a thermal runaway?

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