Robotic surgical assistants, most famously the da Vinci surgical system, have become commonplace in many hospitals. Robotics has the potential to give surgeons the dexterity, patience, and sensitivity that humans can never achieve with their own hands. To that end, researchers at the University of Bern in Switzerland have been working on (Read more...)
Tag: Neurosurgery
First Implantable Pump Delivers Drugs Directly Into Brains of Epileptic Patients
Flowonix, a company out of Mt. Olive, New Jersey, and Cerebral Therapeutics of Aurora, Colorado, have announced that the Prometra II infusion device they jointly developed has been installed in the first patients in a clinical trial. The trial at the St. Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia involves patients with med (Read more...)
Scopis Target Guided Surgery System Cleared in U.S.
Scopis, a company headquartered in Berlin, Germany, won FDA clearance for its augmented reality navigation system for ENT surgeries. The technology provides visual guided paths, superimposed onto the live imaging from the endoscope, that help surgeons guide their tools safely toward difficult to reach targets. The technology relies on Scopis’ (Read more...)
Fastest Brain-Computer Interface Lets Severely Paralyzed Type Quickly
At Stanford University, researchers have given severely paralyzed people the fastest brain-computer interface yet. This is measured in terms of how fast they were able to type using an on-screen matrix of letters. Two patients with ALS and one with a spinal cord injury simply imagined moving a physical computer mouse, though their hands were [&hell (Read more...)
Scaffolds Covered in Stem Cells and Silver Ions to Prevent Osteomyelitis
Bone infections are often very difficult to treat, and with the rise of MRSA this issue has become only more challenging. A team of researchers from University of Missouri, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, and Silpakorn University in Thailand has developed a way of making tissue scaffol (Read more...)
Nano Thread Enables Scientists to Extend Length of Brain Implant Efficacy
Researcher Dr. Luan and his interdisciplinary team from the University of Texas at Austin have developed an ultra flexible nanoelectronic thread (NET) that has the potential to offer a new type of the long-term neural implants. Neural probes are used to directly measure or even stimulate electrical activity in specific regions of the brain. However (Read more...)
Simulating Blood Flow from Tomo Scans to Prep for Complex Surgeries
Modern CT and MRI scanners can provide a moving image of the heart, but they don’t show the complicated patterns of blood flow in and around the organ. Seeing the dynamic nature of patients’ hemodynamics may help surgeons prepare for complicated operations. At Stanford researchers are developing a pre-surgical tool that can ta (Read more...)
A Non-Invasive Brain-Computer Interface for Completely Locked-In Patients: Interview with Dr. Ujwal Chaudhary
Researchers have developed a non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) for completely locked-in patients. This is the first time that these patients, with complete motor paralysis but an intact cognitive state, have been able to reliably communicate. A completely locked-in state involves the loss of all motor control, including that of the eye mu (Read more...)
Stentrode Minimally Invasive Brain-Machine Interface: Interview with Dr. Thomas Oxley, Neurologist at Royal Melbourne Hospital
Australian researchers at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the University of Melbourne have developed an electrode that can record brain activity from the motor cortex, without the need for invasive brain surgery. The electrode, called a stentrode, is implanted into a blood vessel in the brain using minimally invasive surgical techniques. The (Read more...)
7D Surgical’s Radiation-Free Image Guided Spinal Surgery System Gets U.S., Canada Clearances
7D Surgical, a company based in Toronto, Canada, won US FDA and Health Canada clearances to introduce its Machine-vision Image Guided Surgery (MIGS) system. The system allows for quick, radiation-free surgical navigation of the spine in preparation for delivering implants. Currently X-ray radiating intraoperative fluoroscopes are used to visualize (Read more...)
Pixium Vision’s Iris II Brings Back Sight to Blind for First Time
Pixium Vision, a company based in Paris, France, has announced that its Iris II bionic vision system has been implanted into the first patient. The Iris II was cleared in Europe back in July of this year and the UK regulatory authority, Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), gave a green light for a clinical trial [ (Read more...)
Second Sight’s Orion I Brain Implant Bypasses Visual System to Let Blind See
Second Sight Medical, a company out of Sylmar, California, has implanted the first device that may bring vision to people that are completely blind from just about any injury or condition. The company became famous for its revolutionary Argus II retinal prosthesis that bypasses damaged photoreceptors in the eye and stimulates remaining retinal cell (Read more...)
Retina Implant’s Higher Resolution Alpha AMS Visual Implant Cleared in EU
Retina Implant AG, a Reutlingen, Germany firm, obtained European regulatory approval for its Alpha AMS subretinal implant for people that have become blind due to retinitis pigmentosa. The new device is an upgrade to the Alpha IMS that was cleared in Europe back in 2013. The Alpha AMS features 1,600 pixels, which is 100 more than […]
Thin Film Brain Implants Integrate Electronic Components in Flexible Package
There seems to be a race to develop practical neural interfaces that are implanted in a minimally invasive fashion and that don’t require wires sticking out of the scalp. We just reported on stentrodes that can be delivered into the brain through the vasculature and now we are learning of a new ability by researchers at Toyohas (Read more...)
Stentrodes for Recording Electrical Activity Within the Brain
Being able to accurately record brain activity over long periods of time holds promise for paralyzed people to control prosthetic devices or even their own arms and legs again. That’s can be thought of as only a start of course, as the brain is central to many diseases and conditions, as well as being a […]
The post Stentrodes for Reco (Read more...)