Electrodes grown in the brain pave the way for future therapies for neurological disorders

Researchers successfully grow electrodes in living tissue using the body’s molecules as triggers.

As sci-fi fiction so often tells us, the line between where biology stops and technology begins is becoming increasingly blurred. Now researchers at Link?ping, Lund and Gothenburg universities in Sweden have blurred the boundaries further by successfully growing electrodes in living tissue using the body’s molecules as triggers. The result, published in the journal Science, paves the way for the formation of fully integrated electronic circuits in living organisms.

My take on this: The field of electronics might seem wholly artificial, but electronic circuits play a critical role in living organisms, particularly in the nervous system. In humans and other animals, neurons use electrical impulses to communicate with each other and with muscles, allowing for movement, sensation and cognitive function.

Interfacing electronics with neural tissue can enable understanding complex biological functions, something that can be crucial in treating age-related neurological conditions; however, conventional bioelectronics, consisting of rigid electrodes, have proved to be fundamentally incompatible with living systems. A more elegant solution was needed, so the team from Sweden went back to biological basics.

“For several decades, we have tried to create electronics that mimic biology. Now we let biology create the electronics for us,” says Professor Magnus Berggren at the Laboratory for Organic Electronics, LOE, at Link?ping University.

Linking electronics to biological tissue is important to understand complex biological functions, combat diseases in the brain and develop future interfaces between man and machine (if you are thinking of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, and neural implants that enhance abilities and allow brain-tech interface at this point, you are not alone). However, conventional bioelectronics, developed in parallel with the semiconductor industry, have a fixed and static design that is difficult, if not impossible, to combine with living biological signal systems.

Learn more about brain-grown electrodes HERE.

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