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Researchers have demonstrated the ability to implant an ultrathin, flexible neural interface with thousands of electrodes into the brain with a projected lifetime of more than six years. Protected from the ravaging environment of internal biological processes by less than a micrometer of material, the achievement is an important step toward creating high-resolution neural interfaces that can persist within a human body for an entire lifetime. The human body is an unforgiving place to live if you're an uninvited guest—especially if you're made of polymers or metal. Besides attacks from the surrounding tissues and immune system, foreign objects must be...

A-ok. Yang Yu models the new liquid metal electrodes holding two batteries to power LEDs connected by a circuit © Jing LiuPainting a patient’s skin with a liquid metal ink could make heart monitoring much less painful and even let doctors keep an eye on a whole range of vital signs. Scientists used the ink to draw electrodes on to the skin, which could also be used to monitor muscle or brain activity.1Currently, doctors monitor a patient’s heartbeat by detecting the muscle’s electrical signals using electrocardiography (ECG). Disposable electrodes attach to a patient’s chest using a sticky paper backing. A...

TUESDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- A procedure that involves drilling two holes into a person's skull and then implanting electrodes in the brain has shown promise in treating individuals who are severely depressed and resistant to other types of treatment. Four of six patients who received this deep brain stimulation showed sustained improvement six months after the procedure took place, scientists report in the March 3 issue of Neuron. The patients have now been followed for a year and are still in remission, added co-lead investigator Dr. Andres Lozano, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto. Although...

BOSTON (AP) - For years, futurists have dreamed of machines that can read minds, then act on instructions as they are thought. Now, human trials are set to begin on a brain-computer interface involving implants. Cyberkinetics Inc. of Foxboro, Mass., has received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients. If successful, the chips could allow patients to command a computer to act - merely by thinking about the instructions they wish to send. It's a small, early step in a mission to improve the...

Implanted Devices May Alter Treatment of Many Disorders A handful of scientists around the world have begun cautiously experimenting with devices implanted in patients' bodies to deliver precisely targeted electrical stimulation to the brain in hopes of treating otherwise hopeless behavioral, neurological and psychiatric disorders. While stressing that the ethically sensitive research with "brain pacemakers" has just begun, the scientists say the results so far have been so promising that it could mark the beginning of a new era in treating often intractable cases. The approach builds on rapid recent advances in understanding how the brain works, on high-tech imaging...

"Lyle Zapato, best-selling author (well, maybe just author) of Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie: Practical Mind Control Protection for Paranoids , and developer of MindGuard, personal anti-psychotronic software for Amiga and Linux, is trying to find as many references to AFDBs or similar devices prior to 1991 as possible. Please help this important part of our cultural heritage from being lost, and email him with any references you can find."

<p>"If you have a collapsed building and there are people under the rubble, there's no robot that exists now that would be capable of going down into such a difficult terrain and finding those people, but a rat would be able to do that," said John Chapin, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at the State University of New York in Brooklyn.</p>