Barcelona-based startup Inbrain Neuroelectronics has secured permission to conduct the world’s first experiments with a promising graphene neuroimplant. Unlike traditional metal electrodes for reading brain cell activity, graphene is not subject to electrochemical changes, which will allow for more powerful tissue stimulation with a pronounced therapeutic effect. Graphene implants will not just read signals, they will heal.
Image source: Inbrain Neuroelectronics
Immersion of implant electrodes into the brain or their close contact with living brain tissue is equivalent to immersion of metal in an electrolyte. When even a weak electrical signal passes through the electrolyte/metal interface, so-called Faradaic (electrochemical redox) processes occur, which gradually reduce the effectiveness of the electrodes. The situation is aggravated if it is necessary to stimulate brain tissue with stronger impulses, which, for example, is necessary for therapy (treatment).
Engineers at Inbrain Neuroelectronics have proposed to bypass this limitation using graphene electrodes. Graphene is ordinary carbon with high conductivity due to its structure. In an electrolyte, it neither oxidizes nor reduces. A graphene sensor implanted in the brain in the form of an array of micron-sized dots will be able to read impulses from the patient’s nervous tissue and, if necessary, return stimulating impulses of increased power to it without fear of causing deterioration in the electrodes’ operation, and it is better not to interfere with the brain once again, which everyone will agree with.
The world’s first Inbrain sensor will be tested this summer at the University of Manchester during an operation to remove a patient’s brain tumour. The Inbrain sensor will be used in this case as a healthy tissue recorder to determine the boundaries of the tumour, so as not to remove areas of the patient’s brain that are not affected by the disease. In the next stage, the sensor will be tested on a patient with Parkinson’s disease. In this case, the interface is placed in the nigrostriatal tract, which will help to record the patient’s brain activity with high resolution during their activity.
In the second stage, the sensor will also not be used directly to restore the patient’s health. Its task will be to identify symptoms indicating an improvement or worsening of the disease. This should help reduce the intake of often unsafe drugs by up to 50%.
At the third stage of testing the graphene neurosensor, it will be used directly for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. The proposed solution will be able to withstand a 200 times stronger impulse than metal electrodes without triggering Faraday reactions. The company has already tested graphene implants for biocompatibility with brain tissue on “large animals” and is confident that people will not have compatibility issues with graphene.
The production of graphene sensors is quite simple, the company says. They can be produced at any semiconductor plant, even the most modern one. Their thickness is 10 microns, and the contact points will be from 25 to 300 microns in size.
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Source: 3dnews.ru
