Since few people walk with these devices, their longevity is still unknown. To date, the Utah sequence has persisted for up to 10 years in monkeys. In Copeland’s case, her implants are still working, but not for the first year or so following implantation, says Robert Conte, a biomedical engineer at the University of Pittsburgh and a member of Copeland’s research team. “The body is a very difficult place to put electronics and engineering systems,” says Conte. “It’s an aggressive environment, and the body is always trying to get rid of these things.”
Fitted rows can stimulates immunity In the neural tissue around the electrodes – spiky probes attached to the brain. Studies have shown that this swelling can lead to decreased signal quality. Scar tissue can form around brain implants, which also affects their ability to pick up signals from nearby nerve cells. The less information the BCI can interpret from a neuron, the less effective it is in carrying out its intended functions.
One way scientists are trying to make implants last longer is by experimenting with different types of materials. Utah Line is insulated with parylene, a protective polymer coating used in the medical device industry for its stability and low moisture permeability. But they can wear and crack over time, and other materials are more durable.
Florian Sulzbacher, CEO of Blackrock Neurotech, which makes Utah matrices, says the company is testing one coated with a mixture of parylene and silicon carbide, which has been a synthetic material for more than 100 years. “We’ve seen an age of up to 30 years on the table, and now we have some preliminary data on the animals,” he says. But the company hasn’t implanted it in humans yet, so the real test will be how human tissue responds to the new formula.
Making the electrodes more flexible can help reduce scarring. Angle’s company, Paradromics, is developing an implant similar to the Utah line, but with thinner electrodes that don’t disturb tissue.
Some researchers are trying to use softer materials that might better integrate into the brain than the harder Utah variety. A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is conducting experiments hydrogel coatings Designed to be very similar to brain plasticity. University of Pennsylvania scientists are growing too “Live” electrodesMicroscopic, hair-like tissue made of nerve cells and nerve fibers that grow from stem cells.
But these methods also have drawbacks. “You can get something hard to be something soft,” Conte says. But if you’re trying to put something very soft into something else soft, it’s very difficult.”
Another way is to make the implants smaller and therefore less invasive. For example, endocrine researchers test, Small flakes the size of a grain of sand It can theoretically be sprayed onto the paint surface. But no one has tried to differentiate it in the human brain. This system has only been tested in decapitated rodents.
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