Dissolvable Brain Sensor Dissolves Once Job Is Done

Studies say that one of the most fatal injuries is one which involves the brain. Around 50,000 people in the United States die every year due to traumatic brain injuries brought about by blunts, bullets, and blood clots.

As these can lead to swelling and prevent the flow of oxygen and blood,  it leaves permanent damage to the brain. It is necessary to keep real time track of the changes taking place inside the patient's skull.

Rory Murphy, a neurosurgeon at the Washington University School of Medicine is developing a breakthrough in medical science. A sensor, thinner than a tip of a needle that can be left in the brain for days, and will eventually dissolve and get absorbed by the body after a period of time. There is no more need for an operation to remove the monitoring device from inside the skull.

John Rogers from the University of Illinois is a specialist in developing flexible electronics using materials that will create a floppy and bendy outcome instead of brittle and breakable ones. He also developed the transient electronics made of materials that will dissolve in water at a given period of time printed with circuits thin enough and perfect for medical implants of temporary use.

Murphy and Rogers have now combined their ideas and refined the latter's designs to develop the sensor made from a polymer in a frame of silicon and magnesium. The watertight polymer serves as the life span indicator of the sensor as it disintegrates over a period of time, The Atlantic reported.

The sensor was tested on rats and has been proven to provide a very accurate monitoring as with those sold in the market. The team is now planning to test the sensor on pigs and eventually hopes on using it on human patients in the next three to five years.

"With advanced materials and device designs, we demonstrated that it is possible to create electronic implants that offer high performance and clinically relevant operation in hardware that completely resorbs into the body after the relevant functions are no longer needed," Rogers said.