Just this Wednesday, a team of both scientists and engineers show results coming from a somewhat promising new approach. This involves the mounting of electrodes on a particularly expandable and springy tube that is called a stent which threads it through a certain blood vessel leading it straight to the brain, according to a publication by Nature.
How to plug your brain into a computer: Synchron's approach
The tests were done on two different people and the researchers directly went for the jugular. They then run the stent-tipped wire up that particular vein located in the throat and then into the vessel located near the brain's own primary motor cortex. That was where they popped the spring.
The electrodes then snuggled its way into the vessel wall and then started sensing when other people's brains started to signal their main intention to move. These then send those signals wirelessly directly to a computer through the use of an infrared transmitter that was surgically inserted towards the subjects' chest.
Detailed accounts of the research and its success
The Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery published an article detailing how both the US and Australian researchers described the research. The description detailed how the two people that suffered from paralysis due to crippling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as the Lou Gehrig's disease, used a device in order to send texts as well as fool around online using only their brain-control.
According to Thomas Oxley, a interventional neurologist as well as the CEO of Synchron, the Stentrode has shown a good demonstration in patients with paralysis and aims to, one day, be utilized to treat diseases, such as Parkinsons's disease and hypertension. It was also stated that this is fully implantable and that patients proceed home in only a number of days or less, as the procedure in minimally invsie and can be performed in 1-2 hours using established neurointerventional procedures.
Technology not yet available for public use
According to Wired, the Food and Drug Administration or the FDA has not yet approved "stentrode," according to the term used by Oxley, for it to be allowed for widespread use. The company is currently in the process of chasing funds in order for it to do more tests, but the given preliminary tests do suggest that it is definitely a functioning brain-computer interface.
Oxley stated that there has been still a lot of talk going on about data and channels but he stated that what really matters is delivering a life-changing product to the number of patients. It was also said that with a handful of outputs that they were able to restore to the patients, the technology even had them in control using a Windows 10.
Related Article: Gennaris 'Bionic Eye' Surpasses Neuralink in World's First Brain Implant Human Trials That Can Restore Vision
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Written by Urian Buenconsejo
