Wireless, Multifunctional Chip Designed by ERC Monitors and Stimulates the Brain
The Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST) team at North Carolina State University, an NSF-funded Engineering Research Center (ERC), has designed an implantable, wireless neural interface system on a chip that can monitor brain activity, as well as stimulate the brain with light and electricity.
Neural interfaces, a subset of implantable microelectronic devices, can establish direct communication with the central nervous system. The devices can be surgically implanted to read neural signals and to stimulate the brain, performing promising treatments for neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s disease.
The wirelessly-powered implantable chip can provide a better understanding of the brain’s functions by reading neural signals in targeted regions of the brain. The device’s bidirectional data communication function means that it can also stimulate the brain by delivering a small electrical current or by shining a light onto the brain tissue.
This new technology could help answer fundamental questions that would pave the way for advances in treatments of neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease.
