brain monitor Brain monitor the size of a grain of rice dissolves after use

[Reefa]

Finding out what’s going on in an injured brain can involve several rounds of surgery, exposed wounds and a mess of wires. Perhaps not for much longer. A device the size of a grain of rice can monitor the brain’s temperature and pressure before dissolving without a trace.

 

“This fully degradable sensor is definitely an impressive feat of engineering,” says Frederik Claeyssens, a biomaterials scientist at the University of Sheffield, UK.

 

The device is the latest creation from John Rogers’s lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They came up with the idea of a miniature dissolvable brain monitor after speaking to neurosurgeons about the difficulties of monitoring brain temperature and pressure in people with traumatic injuries.

 

Unwieldy wires

 

These vital signs are currently measured via an implanted sensor connected to an external monitor. “It works, but the wires coming out of the head limit physical movement and provide a nidus for infection. You can cause additional damage when you pull them out,” says Rogers. It would be better to use a wireless device that doesn’t need to be extracted, he says.

 

Spoiler

 

So Rogers’s team developed an electronic monitor about a tenth of a millimetre wide and a millimetre long made of silicon and a polymer. These materials, used in tiny amounts, are eventually broken down by the body, and don’t trigger any harmful effects, says Rogers. “The materials individually are safe. The total amount is very small. It’s about 1000 times less than what you’d have in a vitamin tablet.”

 

The sensor can measure subtle fluctuations in electrical resistance that result from changes in the pressure and temperature of the brain. Measurements are then wirelessly transmitted to an external device using radio waves.

 

When Rogers’s team tested the sensors in rats, they found that they were as accurate as existing monitoring devices. The tiny implants transmitted information for about a week until they stopped working. After three months, the implants had disappeared.

 

A decade away?

 

Rogers thinks that similar devices could be used to monitor other aspects of brain health, as well as other body organs.

“This work could potentially address an unmet clinical need,” says Christopher Bettinger at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “If manufacturing and regulatory challenges are appropriately addressed, this device could enter the clinic within 5 to 10 years.”

 

Rogers’s team have previously created bendy implants that can cover a rabbit’s heart and keep it beating, or use the movement to generate electricity to power other implants. The group have also developed stretchy electronic “tattoos” .

Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature16492

(Images: J. Rogers, University of Illinois)

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28790-brain-monitor-the-size-of-a-grain-of-rice-dissolves-after-use/

 

[humble3d]

Great news for all of us suffering traumatic brain injuries (TBI)...