neural implant

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a device surgically placed within the brain or nervous system to record neural activity, deliver electrical stimulation, or replace the function of damaged neural tissue; neural implants range from single-electrode devices to multi-electrode Utah arrays with dozens or hundreds of recording sites, from cochlear implants that restore hearing by stimulating the auditory nerve to deep brain stimulators that treat Parkinson's disease by delivering precisely targeted electrical pulses to the subthalamic nucleus or globus pallidus; next-generation neural implants seek to achieve long-term stable recording from thousands of neurons simultaneously while minimising the foreign body response — the inflammatory reaction and glial scarring that degrades electrode performance over months and years; the development of flexible polymer-based electrodes that better match the mechanical properties of brain tissue, fully wireless implants that eliminate the risk of infection through percutaneous wires, and closed-loop implants that sense brain state and adapt stimulation in real time represents the frontier of neural implant engineering

Examples

• The neural implant enabled a patient with locked-in syndrome to move a cursor across a screen.
• Miniaturised wireless neural implants may one day replace tethered recording rigs.