Viventi Jonathan, Blanco Justin A
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2012;2012:1394-6. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2012.6346199.
More than one third of the world's 60 million people with epilepsy have seizures that cannot be controlled by medication. Some of these individuals may be candidates for surgical removal of brain regions that generate seizures, but the chance of being seizure free after epilepsy surgery is as low as 35% in many patients. Even when surgery is successful, patients risk neurological deficits like memory loss and speech difficulties. The need for new treatments is clear. A central barrier to better treatments for epilepsy is technological: we do not have devices capable of interfacing with the brain with small enough electrodes over large enough regions to map epileptic networks in sufficient detail to enable treatment. Our collaborative group has developed new implantable brain devices to address this challenge. Our devices, made from flexible silicon nanoribbons, can record from these very small brain regions, with electrodes ½ millimeter apart or less, and can be scaled up to clinically useful sizes, on the order of 64 cm(2). They consist of thousands of individually controllable microelectrodes.
全球6000万癫痫患者中，超过三分之一的人癫痫发作无法通过药物控制。其中一些人可能适合通过手术切除引发癫痫发作的脑区，但在许多患者中，癫痫手术后无癫痫发作的几率低至35%。即使手术成功，患者也有出现如记忆丧失和言语困难等神经功能缺损的风险。显然需要新的治疗方法。癫痫更好治疗方法的一个核心障碍是技术方面的：我们没有能够在足够大的区域用足够小的电极与大脑连接以足够详细地绘制癫痫网络从而实现治疗的设备。我们的合作团队开发了新的可植入脑设备来应对这一挑战。我们的设备由柔性硅纳米带制成，可以从这些非常小的脑区进行记录，电极间距为半毫米或更小，并且可以扩大到临床可用的尺寸，约为64平方厘米。它们由数千个可单独控制的微电极组成。
