Tiny brain implant recharges from outside of body

Developed by KAIST researchers and their collaborators, the device has been constructed with ultra-soft and bio-compliant polymers. Geared with micrometre-sized LEDs mounted on ultrathin probes, the device is said to wirelessly manipulate target neurons in the deep brain using light.

This study, led by Professor Jae-Woong Jeong, is an advance on the wireless head-mounted implant neural device he developed in 2019 that could indefinitely deliver multiple drugs and light stimulation treatment by using a smartphone.

Smartphone controls therapeutic brain implants

For the latest version, the research team came up with a fully implantable, soft optoelectronic system that can be remotely and selectively controlled by a smartphone. The team’s findings are published in Nature Communications.

Wireless implantable device technologies have become popular as alternatives to conventional tethered implants because they help minimise stress and inflammation in free-moving animals during brain studies, which enhances the lifetime of the devices. Such devices require intermittent surgeries to replace discharged batteries, or bulky wireless power setups, which limit experimental options as well as the scalability of animal experiments.