NEWRON Volume VI, Issue VII
NEWRON Admin
NeuroEngineering Weekly Review of News
Hey NEWRON Subscribers,
For those of you at Hopkins, be sure to keep an eye out for prospective BME PhD students visiting the campus and wandering around labs this coming Wednesday-Friday. Additionally, be sure to check out the NETI poster advertising current NETI first-year research projects during the Friday poster session.
Enjoy,
Mike Batista
NEWRON Editor and Manager
Reviews
Rodent mind meld: scientists wire two rats’ brains together
Scientists have wired the brains of two rats together and shown that signals from one rat’s brain can help the second rat solve a problem it would otherwise have no clue how to solve. According to Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University, who led the study, “We basically created a computational unit out of two brains.” Nicholelis is the same man behind the plan to develop a brain-controlled exoskeleton that would allow a paralyzed person to walk onto the field and kick a soccer ball at the opening ceremony of next year’s World Cup in Brazil. The new findings could point the way to future therapies aimed at restoring movement or language after a stroke or other brain injury by using signals from a healthy part of the brian to retrain the injured area.
Read more:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/02/rodent-mind-meld/
First signals from brain nerve cells with ultrathin nanowires
At Lund University in Sweden, researchers have, for the first time, succeeded in implanting an ultrathin nanowire-based electrode and capturing signals from the nerve cells in the brain of a laboratory animal. Their electrode is composed of a group of nanowires, each of which measures only 200 nanometres in diameter. The research group has already worked for several years to develop electrodes that are thin and flexible enough not to disturb the brain tissue, and with material that does not irritate the cells nearby. They now have the first evidence that it is possible to obtain useful nerve signals from nanometre-sized electrodes.
Read more:
http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24890&news_item=6018
Article:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0056673
Brown unveils novel wireless brain sensor
A team of neuroengineers based at Brown University has developed a fully implantable and rechargeable wireless brain sensor capable of relaying real-time broadband signals from up to 100 neurons in freely moving subjects. Several copies of the novel low-power device, described in the Journal of Neural Engineering, have been performing well in animal models for more than year, a first in the brain-computer interface field. Brain-computer interfaces could help people with severe paralysis control devices with their thoughts.
Read more:
http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2013/02/wireless
Article: