Researchers work on brain implant material
US researchers are working on a new material that can rapidly switch from being rigid to flexible and vice versa, in the hope that it could one day be used to build brain implants for patients with Parkinson’s disease.
The material mimics the ability of sea cucumbers which ‘tense’ when threatened. Adding water acts as a type of ‘chemical switch’, changing the state of the materials. Researchers hope to use it to make advanced brain electrodes which are stiff when implanted, yet supple inside the body.
The material consists of naturally occurring nanofibres carefully embedded in a polymer. The cellulose fibres, each of which are 25 nanometres (billionths of a metre) in diameter, are harvested from a sessile sea creature known as a tunicate or sea squirt.
Read more at the BBC
Read more on: Bio Tech
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