Tiny electronic implants, wireless and melting in the body could help doctors to monitor the brain one day, suggests new research in rats. The scientists said the study could use similar appliances elsewhere on the body, possibly as a means of delivering medicine to specific locations. Electronic implants can now help with everything from cardiovascular attacks to traumatic brain damage. Pacemakers, for example, can help maintain a proper heart beat, while brain sensors can monitor the patients for potentially dangerous inflammation and pressure in the brain.
However, standard permanent electronic implants can pose risks to patients because these devices can become sites of infection, researchers said. Such afflictions can trigger immune responses and result in complications associated with their surgical removal.
Now, scientists with rats developed new implants that can monitor brain activity and, just weeks following implantation, dissolve or "resorb. " " We are excited because the work is a new type of implantable electronic device with a unique key feature, total bio-orbitality, which provides many ways to improve the health outcomes of patients, "study author John Rogers, materials scientist at Urbana-Champaign University of Illinois, said Live Science. Scientists with rats have now developed new implants which can control brain activity then, a few weeks after implantation, dissolve or "resorb. "
" We are excited to be working on this new type of electronic device, which is implantable and has one key unique characteristic–complete bioresorbability–and which provides numerous possibilities to improve patients ' health outcomes, "study author John Roger, materials scientist from Urbana-Champaña University in Illinois, says Live Science. The investigators have developed silicon-based sensors each measuring about the size of a grain of rice. These devices consist of extremely thin, naturally biodegradable sheets of silicone that can record pressure and temperature — essential elements for monitoring after brain damage or operation.
These sensors can be connected to external head-built devices, which relay sensor data outwards, via biodegradable wires made from a metallic element called molybdenum. The researchers explained that the sensors and wires dissolve completely and harmlessly in the brain and spine fluid, called brain and spinal fluid. " Such systems are capable of performing a sophisticated function in a variety of clinical practices where therapeutic or monitoring systems have been implanted or taken up and subsequently absorbed harmlessly in the body after they no longer require their function, "Rogers said in a statement.
The sensors could continue to operate for up to three days in experiments in rats. Patients with traumatic brain injuries are typically monitored for some days after injury, Rogers and colleagues noted. The scientific experts are improving their appliances now, so that they will be able to work for a few weeks rather than a few days.
The ultimate strategy is to have a device that is fully implanted into the brain or other organs in the body, intimately connected with the organ you want to monitor and can send out signals wirelessly to provide health information, so that doctors can intervene if necessary to prevent major problems. " In a statement, Louis said. " It will dissolve and disappear after the critical period you really want to monitor. "
The researchers have noted that outside transmitters can still be an infection source. To overcome this problem a 0.6-inch (1.5 centimeter) wide implantable transmitter or about the size of the postage stamp has been produced that requires no skin wiring. The implant can't be fully dissolved yet, but Rogers and his collaborators have recently researched to suggest they can be completely biodegradable–the body can absorb only about 85 percent of it.
The researchers are moving toward human clinical trials for their devices. They also plan to add even more capabilities to these implants, such as motion sensing or acidity monitoring. Moreover, "In the near future, we believe that it will be possible to embed therapeutic function, such as electrical stimulation or drug delivery, into the same systems while retaining the essential bioresorbable character," Rogers said in a statement. Future research could lead to even smaller devices, as microchips have shrunk over the decades, Rogers added.
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