Biomedical and electrical engineers at UNSW Sydney have now found a way to measure neural activity through light! This revelation dramatically reconstructs and brings forth progress in terms of ideas and theories related to new technological advancements, including prosthetics.
UNSW’s School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications has been able to portray something that was just a theory a couple of years ago, that sensors built using liquid crystal and certain optics technologies, alluded to as optrodes can actually process nerve impulses in a living body.
Prior to this discovery, electricity is what was used to measure neural activity. According to Professor François Ladouceur however, light may presently be the superior option. He addressed numerous issues with electrodes that optrodes won't be subject to. Some of the points raised include...
-difficulty in shrinking the size of the interface which uses conventional electrodes so that thousands can be utilized in a small area for optimal experiences. This is due to the resistance that impairs the ability to process signals.
-These electrodes would also begin to experience affect one another due to the close vicinity, also known as crosstalk
-Optrodes on the other hand use light so the issue of resistance and crosstalk are lessened.
What Could this Mean for the Future of Prosthetics and Other Technological Advancements?
The next step from this current advancement would be to increase the number of optrodes to handle the complex nervous networks throughout our bodies. The hope with this new revelation is to potentially get something to work almost identically to a biological arm. Because of how optrodes can shrink without much interference, it is possible for a chip with a thousand optical connections to potentially work just like a biological one! There is still a long way to go however but this is just the beginning of something potentially amazing!
By: Samiha
Articles Used (MLA):
University of New South Wales. "Engineers light the way to nerve-operated prosthetics of the future." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 26 October 2022. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221026103143.htm>.
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