Shreyas Saride

ISM
11/27/2018

Research Assessment

Subject:​​ The Next Generation in Neural Prosthetics

MLA Citation:

ASME. "The Next Generation in Neural Prosthetics." ​The American Society of Mechanical

Engineers​,

www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/bioengineering/next-generation-in-neural-pros

thetics​.

“The Next Generation in Neural Prosthetics” visits multiple aspects of how prosthetics

have changed over the years, slowly working in correlation with the nervous system. The article

reveals that the new emerging technology is being developed to combat the compatibility issues

of putting a foreign object into the human body. This is called biocompatibility. The human body

has a system devoted to attacking foreign objects and is more commonly known for fighting

diseases, the immune system. To prevent the immune system from affecting the prosthetics,

scientists created the polymer. This was first implemented in auditory prosthetics, which

implements parallels to limb prosthetics as well. Also the research team tasked with creating a

biocompatible prosthetic is pulling lessons from biology. Prosthetics are mostly either referring

to muscle and nervous tissue (in this case, the bone can be replaced with a rigid metal piece, but

the muscle and the nerve cells are what carry out the functions). Both of these tissues are very

much flexible, allowing for better fitting and placement of the cells, allowing the tissue to carry

out its functions. For example, is muscle cells are not flexible, they can not bend. The creation of
Shreyas Saride
ISM
11/27/2018

a flexible polymer allows for many possibilities of biocompatibility and new prosthetics. Dr.

Sarah Felix, the lead researcher, mentions that these neural prosthetics are on the rise, so she says

to not be surprised when we see them hit the commercial market in a few years.

The rise of Neural Prosthetics is directly related to new information learned about the

brain in the last decade. Neurology has just recently started to be intertwined with prosthetics,

forming the field, Neural Prosthetics. The sky's the limit for this new technology. The idea that

someone can feel their lost limb again and use it is just a phenomenal idea. This field is more

relevant to Neuromuscular disorders, but is not limited to them. If we can recreate limbs and

attach artificial limbs to them, who’s to stop us from say making an artificial eye and connecting

an optic nerve to restore a blind man’s sight, allowing him to see again?

Some questions I have regarding this topic is “What exactly the neuro prosthetic going to

feel? What sensations will a person be able to recognize?

Shreyas Saride
ISM
11/27/2018

The Next Generation

in Neural Prosthetics

Following up on the success of cochlear and retinal prostheses for people who have lost

sensory function, neuroscientists see a limitless horizon for related devices that are able

to read electrical and chemical signals from the nervous system to stimulate capability

and restore quality of life in persons suffering injury and disease.

In the future, according to researchers, the devices – known as neural prosthetics – will

help epileptics, persons with treatment-resistant depression and chronic pain, victims of

Alzheimer’s disease, wounded war veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder

and traumatic brain injury, persons with speech disabilities, and individuals who have

sustained spinal cord injury and loss of limbs, among other applications in the research

pipeline.

But before neural prosthetics can advance, engineers will be called on to make

innovative use of materials to design and fabricate devices that allow sustained
Shreyas Saride
ISM
11/27/2018

electronic functioning in the harsh environment of the human body, without causing

tissue infection and other serious adverse conditions. Research efforts have focused on

enhancing the performance of various types of materials used in neural prosthetics, in

addition to developing interface technologies that enable the micro devices to be safely

implanted in human tissue for long periods.

Researchers at ​Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory​, Livermore, CA, are making

gains with thin-film flexible polymer materials. In experiments with auditory prosthetic

applications, the microelectrodes comprising the neural interface are embedded in the

polymer, which allows the device to move naturally and conform to live tissue in which it

is implanted. These materials have mechanical properties that mimic neural tissue more

closely than traditional micro wires used in current cochlear and deep brain stimulating

implants.

“Among the engineering challenges associated with neural prosthetics is the

biocompatibility of the implant,” says Dr. Sarah Felix, a lead research engineer at

Lawrence Livermore and also a member of ASME. “Research suggests that polymer is

more compatible with the human body than the silicon in conventional neural probes

used in ​neuroscience​ studies.”

 Shreyas Saride
ISM
11/27/2018

rtificial retinal implant has an array of 240 thin-film microelectrodes inside a microelectronics package. Image:

Toward Reliability

Conventional rigid ​neural devices​ are believed to cause micro tearing because the

neural tissue is softer than the device. According to Felix, the flexibility of a thin-film

polymer probe mitigates this problem. However, the flexibility also makes polymer

devices difficult to implant. Felix’s solution is to temporarily attach a rigid stiffener.

“For the polymer neural interfaces, we attach the device to a needle-like stiffener using

bio-dissolvable polyethylene glycol (PEG) to enable extraction of the stiffener after

surgical insertion,” says Felix, who holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the

University of California, Berkeley. “An innovative bonding process enables accurate

alignment of the device to the stiffener.”

A novel feature of the design is a shallow channel running lengthwise, which allows the

even distribution of the PEG or other bio-adhesive during assembly and implantation.

Felix’s team used the method to implant unique dual-sided polymer electrode arrays

into brain tissue, and these arrays successfully recorded neural signals.

A Promising Future
Shreyas Saride
ISM
11/27/2018

Lawrence Livermore believes its devices and surgical methods can be expanded for

future applications in deep brain and spinal cord simulation, which will enable

physicians to advance neural prosthetics to the next level of human health and

rehabilitation. In fact, Lawrence Livermore is currently developing neural implants that

will restore auditory, motor, and bladder function; aid speech; and control depression

and epilepsy.

Each year, the ​National Institutes of Health​ spends $6.5 million on neural prosthetics

R&D, and today several of the most prestigious medical research institutions in the U.S.

– Case Western University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology among them

– are engaged in promising clinical studies.

Many medical scientists believe the sky is the limit for neural prosthetics, but ultimately

it is the engineering community that will need to design and fabricate devices that

enable the realization of the promise of neural modulation for patients and their families.

Says Felix: “There exist many engineering considerations with neural prosthetics,

particularly in the interface of the device with human tissue. Engineers must think about

a complete range of issues, from electrode materials and the lifetime of the implant to

electronics and signal processing. This will be an intriguing pathway of multidisciplinary

scientific and engineering development for many years to come.”