The robot’s soft legs are packed with sensors that measure brain activity
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Inserted through a small hole in the skull, the soft robot can deploy six sensor-filled legs on the surface of the brain. A version of this soft robot has been successfully tested on miniature his pigs and may be scaled up for human testing in the future.
This concept offers a less invasive approach for placing electrodes on the surface of the brain compared to the traditional method in which a surgeon drills a hole in the skull the size of a fully expanded device. If it proves safe and effective in humans, it could ultimately help monitor and treat people experiencing epileptic seizures and other neurological disorders.
“There is actually a very large surface area that can be reached without a major craniotomy,” says Stephanie Lacourt of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
The soft robot is 2 cm long and its legs are mainly made of flexible silicone polymer. The legs resemble curved petals that spiral around the central body and are 4 cm in diameter when fully extended. Each leg contains electrodes for monitoring brain activity.
Scho Song of the Swiss Federal Institute for Materials Science and Technology, a member of the research team, said future prototypes could extend the legs by 8 to 10 centimeters without making larger holes in the skull. I’m here.
When tucked in, it becomes like a sleeve with the cuffs pushed up toward the shoulder as if the sleeve were turned inside out.expand, The feet are filled with liquid and pushed outward.
The robot was tested on brain models made of plastic and hydrogel. But the researchers also showed how he placed a single 15-mm-long, straight robotic leg in the brain of Gottingen’s miniature pig. In a live animal demonstration, researchers electrically stimulated the snouts of miniature pigs and the electrodes on the soft robot recorded patterns of brain activity.
Placing a soft robot on the surface of the brain is difficult because there is virtually no gap between the human brain and skull, averaging only 1 mm. The researchers designed the robot’s legs to extend gently so as not to put too much pressure on the brain.
Strain sensors embedded in each leg convey information about when the robot’s legs are fully extended without the need for additional cameras or external sensors. “Their use of innovative strain sensors has the potential to reduce the need for post-operative imaging and reduce time spent in the operating room,” said Damiano Barone of the University of Cambridge.
Once the brain-monitoring task is complete, the robot’s legs retract for easy extraction by the surgeon. The researchers plan to eventually scale up the Soft He robot for human testing through a spin-off startup called Neurosoft Bioelectronics.
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