Implant improvement

Engineers at the University of Michigan have developed a nanotech coating for brain implants that helps the devices operate longer and could improve treatment for deafness, paralysis, blindness, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.

Currently, brain implants operate in one of two ways. Either they stimulate neurons with electrical impulses to override the brain's own signals, or they record what working neurons are transmitting to non-working parts of the brain and reroute that signal.

Presently used on scalp and brain surface, electrodes are giving way to brain-penetrating microelectrodes that can communicate with individual neurons, offering hope for more precise control of signals.

In recent years, researchers at other institutions have demonstrated that these implanted microelectrodes can let a paralysed person use thought to control a computer mouse and move a wheelchair. Michigan researchers' say their coating can improve this type of microelectrode.

Mohammad Reza Abidian, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering who is among the developers of the new coating, said that the reliability of today's brain-penetrating microelectrodes often begins to decline after they are in place for only a few months.