Implantable chip has potential for Parkinson's and prosthetic control

Parkinson’s disease sufferers and amputees could be among those to benefit from a low-power microchip that can be implanted in the brain and send signals wirelessly to implants and prosthetics. Developed at Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University (NTU), the chip is claimed to be 100 times more efficient than existing devices to process and decode the signals sent and received by the brain.

The interface between the brain and electronic neural implants is always complex. Parkinson’s patients sometimes have implants that send electrical signals to calm the debilitating tremors and stiffness associated with the disease; paraplegics and amputees can have implants which control the movement of artificial limbs or devices to help with movement. But these depend on intercepting the signals sent by the brain and translating them into binary signals that the implant or external device can understand.

The brain produces huge amounts of data; the translation devices have to receive and send through many channels, often numbering thousands. This can make the translation devices cumbersome, and they often need a battery. This reduces the size available for the electronics, which can compromise the functionality of the device; for example, it can make it impossible for the device to record the history of brain activity, and their accuracy is reduced.