If you have a brain, and if you know others who do, then you know there’s a catastrophic catalogue of ways that our skull-socket electro-fat computers can disappoint their owners. From memory-loss to migraines, from depression to dementia, the brain is astonishingly inventive at decaying in ways that can turn many people’s existences into mental hell.
But as a certain brainy professor in Futurama was fond of declaring, “Good news, everybody!” Because along with their international partners, researchers at Cornell University have developed a micro-neural implant so tiny it could dance on the head of a pin, and so astonishingly well-engineered that after implantation in a mouse, it can wirelessly transmit data about brain function for more than a year under its own power.
A neuro-implant so tiny it’s fit for the Micronauts
In their just-published Nature Electronics paper, lead author Sunwoo Lee, assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University, and his Cornell co-authors reveal a device whose purpose (and acronym) sound like something that sci-fi heroes Mister Terrific or Mister Fantastic would have created on a truly great day – the MOTE, or Microscale Optoelectronic Tetherless Electrode.
Never before has anyone engineered such a tiny neurotech module, whose size offers enormous medical benefits for neural monitoring and bio-integrated sensing. By transmitting its neuro-electric readings, the MOTE yields rich data for neuroscientists and other medical researchers that may lead to a host of treatments that relieve suffering from neurological disorders, and could one day help develop a startling set of cerebral cyborganic superiorities.
“As far as we know, this is the smallest neural implant that will measure electrical activity in the brain and then report it out wirelessly,” team co-leader Alyosha Molnar, professor in Cornell’s school of electrical and computer engineering, told the Cornell Chronicle. One of the MOTE’s greatest advantages over previous neuro-implants is its use of “pulse position modulation for the code,” which is “the same code used in optical communications for satellites.” That means the MOTE grants an exceptional advantage for brain implants – using almost no power for optical transmission of its data.
It’s got frickin’ lasers, but unlike Dr. Evil’s shark, the MOTE is here to help
Previous neurotech implants experienced obstacles to optimal function, including tissue rejection, the immune system severing nerve connections (whoops!) near the electrodes, and the simple drift of recording electrodes inside the brain from their proper locations.
But as its name suggests, the MOTE works extremely well because it’s extremely small. At 300 by 70 microns, it’s smaller than a nanolitre, or a millionth of a milliliter (so if my calculations are right, you could fit more than 4.78 million of them in a teaspoon).
Because its aluminum gallium arsenide semiconductor diode uses light for photovoltaic power, the MOTE can transmit its neuro-electric data via red and infrared lasers beam directly through the brain without inflicting harm, and without needing wires or tethering. As the Nature Electronics article reports, the MOTE’s metal–oxide–semiconductor circuits offer “low-noise amplification, pulse-position-modulated encoding, and electro-optical transduction.”
In the eternal battle of neurotech vs. MRIs, can the MOTE hope to win?
Why do we need MOTEs, anyway? Don’t MRI scans already provide highly useful insights into brain operations? Yes, but not when combined with most neurotech implants. That’s because as the Journal of Neural Engineering warned, “interactions between the magnetic resonance (MR) environment and implants pose severe health risks to the patient.” Imagine Magneto attacking Wolverine and his adamantium skeletal implants, and the agonizing danger becomes more obvious.
And it’s not just neurotech implants at risk from MRI scans. “More than 300,000 cochlear implant recipients are excluded from MRI,” notes the same J Neural Eng article, “unless the indication outweighs the excruciating pain.” However, the need for some patients to receive deep brain stimulation (DBS) is so great that in the US, 75,000 DBS patients receive MRI scans as essential for implantation, with J Neural Eng observing that “medical centres deliberately exceed safety regulations, which they refer to as crucially impractical.”
So, a key aspect of MOTEs as a breakthrough technology is the fact that because MRI scan don’t affect them, MOTEs can record neuro-electric readings during MRI scans. According to Molnar, adapted MOTEs could operate inside tissues such as the spinal cord, with next-generation MOTEs employing opto-electronics and deployed inside artificial skull plates.
Is the future a planet of mentally enhanced neurocyborgs?
For many people, treatment for mental illness and brain-related illness is a life sentence to Big Pharma’s perpetual prescription of giga-profitable pills with temporary results. By implantation via minimally invasive surgery – including through the nose – neurotech implants offer long-term relief from suffering without potential pharma-bankruptcy … so long as micro-neurotech never adopts the subscription model of Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Suite. Remember the Rashida Jones “Common People” episode of Black Mirror?
Regardless of who ultimately controls neurotech implants, the MOTE joins a lengthy and exciting list of neurotech innovations that New Atlas has covered, including helping a patient silenced by ALS to talk and even sing again, empowering a paralyzed man to thought-pilot a virtual drone by imagining moving his fingers, enabling thought-control of iPhones, and perhaps most important of all for quality of life: activating instantaneous pain relief.
As neurotechnologists combine and iterate upon these micromachines – ideally in an open-source capacity to maximize affordable access and innovation – humanity stands to enjoy incalculable benefits. The potential for cyborganic evolution may be limitless. Now if only someone can embed ethics chips inside the billionaire “brain-bros” of Neuro-Silicon Valley.
Source: Cornell University
