Scientists Create Sewing Machine For Brain Electrode Implants

A scientist team funded by the U.S Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in association with Elon Musk said that they have recently found a new method to carry out deep brain stimulation on rats. This ‘sewing machine’ system for implantation could open the door for the invention of mind-reading computers, according to the report of Bloomberg.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Justin Sanchez, Biotech Director of DARPA, said:

It is known that DARPA offered financial support for this research.

For years, scientists have been trying their best to find out ways to implant electrodes into human brains with little to no inflammation and damages. A big challenge is making highly flexible electrical wiring which can not only move with the brain but also be rigid enough to be put in the right spot.

The sewing machine uses a novel technique to deal with the challenge. It takes advantages of a stiff needle in order to implant a thin and bendable polymer electrode into the brain. Every few seconds, an electrode is injected by the machine, which is much quicker than other alternative methods.

The paper of the research team, which was published on bioRxiv preprint server, is important due to the founding role of Musk in Neuralink, a venture shrouded in secrecy which targets to create a brain-computer interface.

All the authors of this new paper, who refused to give any comment, have been working for Neuralink, according to Bloomberg.

In addition, Bloomberg also stated that the report is quite intriguing because of a Twitter post in which Musk teased an update of Neuralink “in a few months.”