8/11/2016

Headline August 12, 2016/ ''' GREAT PROFESSORS - GREAT *PRACTITIONERS '''


''' GREAT PROFESSORS - 

GREAT *PRACTITIONERS '''




IT IS WORTH REPEATING THE HONOUR  -that Dr  Michel Maharbiz is an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences

And  Dr. Jose Carmena is a neuroscientist and a  professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, as the sprinkling of neural dust opens door to electroceuticals.

Maharbiz and Carmena conceived the idea of neural dust about five years ago, but attempts to power an implantable device and read out the data using radio waves were disappointing.

Radio attenuates very quickly with distance in tissue. so communicating with devices deep in the body will be difficult without using potentially damaging high-intensity radiation.

Maharbiz, hit on the idea ultrasound, and in  2013 published a paper with Carmena, Seo and their colleagues describing how such a system might work. 

''Our first study demonstrated that the fundamental physics of ultrasound allowed for very, very small implants that could record and communicate neural data,'' said Maharbiz. 

*He and his students have now created that system*

''THE VERY ORIGINAL GOAL of the neural dust project was to imagine the next generation of  *brain machine interfaces, and make it a visible clinical technology,'' said neuroscience graduate student Ryan Neely.

''If a paraplegic wants to control a computer or a  robotic arm, you would just implant the electrode in the brain and it would last essentially a whole of the life time.''

In a paper published online in 2013, the researchers estimated that they would shrink the sensors down to a cube  50 microns on a side   -about 2 thousandths of an inch, or half the weight of human hair. 

At that size, the motes could nestle up to just a few axons and continually record their electrical activity.

''The beauty is that now, the sensors are small enough to have a good application in the peripheral nervous system, for bladder control or appetite suppression, for example,'' Carmena said.

''The technology is not there yet to get to the 50-micron target size, which we would need for the brain and central nervous system. Once it's clinically proven, however, neural dust will just replace wire electrodes. This time, once you close up the brain, you're done.''

The team is working now to miniaturize the device further, find more biocompatible materials and improve the surface transceiver that sends and receives the ultrasounds. Ideally using  beam-steering  technology to focus on sound waves on individual motes.

They are now building  little backpacks  for rats to hold the ultrasound transceiver that will record data from implanted motes.

They're also working to expand the motes ability to detect non-electrical signals such as oxygen or hormone levels.

''The vision is to implant these neural dust motes anywhere in the body, and have a patch over the implanted site send ultrasonic waves to wake up and receive necessary information from the motes for the desired therapy you want,'' said Dongjin Seo, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences.

''Eventually you would use multiple implants and one patch that would ping each implant individually, or all simultaneously 

''Ultrasound is much more efficient   when you are targeting devices that are on the millimeter scale or smaller and that are embedded deep in the body,'' Seo said. 

''You can a get a lot of power into it a lot more efficient transfer of energy and communications when using ultrasound as opposed to electromagnetic waves, which has been the go-to method for wirelessly transmitting power to miniature implants.''

''Now that you have a reliable, minimally invasive, neural pickup in your body the technology could become the driver for a whole gamut of applications, things that today don't even seem to exist,'' Carmena said.

With respectful dedication to all the Great Professors, Students and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and !E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:


''' Bug Bounty '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless

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