A flexible film bristling with tiny sensors could make surgery safer for patients with a brain tumor or severe epilepsy.
The experimental film, which looks like Saran wrap, rests on the brain’s surface and detects the electrical activity of nerve cells below. It’s designed to help surgeons remove diseased tissue while preserving important functions like language and memory.The technology is similar in concept to sensor grids already used in brain surgery. But the resolution is 100 times higher, says“Imagine that you’re looking on a clear night at the moon,” Dayeh says, “then imagine a telescope.
During an operation, surgeons place a grid of sensors on the surface of an awake patient’s brain, taking care not to tear the delicate film. Then they ask the patient to do tasks, like counting or moving a finger.“If somebody is a mathematician, we’ll give them a math formula,” Raslan says. “If somebody is a painter, we’ll give them what’s called a visual cognition task.”
That’s possible because each sensor on the new grid is “a fraction of the diameter of the human hair,” Dayeh says. And the grid itself is bonded to a plastic film so thin and flexible that it conforms to every contour of the brain’s surface.The device works well in animals. And in May, the FDA approved it for testing in people.
“Ultimately, the goal was to develop better ways of treating human beings,” Ngai says, “and I think this gives us a pretty big stride toward that goal.
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