Injectable Nanosensors

From Ian Taylor's 7-24-21 SCIENCE FOCUS article entitled "The Injectable Nanosensor That Will One Day Read Your Thoughts":

A new kind of injectable biosensor might one day be able to read your thoughts or let you communicate with nothing but your mind. Researchers behind NeuroSWARM3 say its gold-plated nanosensors, which are the size of a single viral particle, could travel through the bloodstream and cross the blood-brain barrier. Once inside the brain they would act like a kind of antenna, turning neural activity into optical signals that could be wirelessly sent to an external device.

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, believe that in the shorter term it could help scientists better understand the mysteries of human cognition. Longer term, potential applications sound like the stuff of science fiction: composing messages with your thoughts, controlling exoskeletons with your mind, the ability to monitor neurological disease with no invasive procedures.

“NeuroSWARM3 can convert the signals that accompany thoughts to remotely measurable signals for high precision brain-machine interfacing,” said A Ali Yanik, co-author of the study.

The technology works by tapping into the electrical signals that neurons use to send information to each other. This happens when humans do just about anything, including moving and thinking. NeuroSWARM3 is a new way to monitor that electrical activity. In fact, Yanik’s latest research shows that it’s sensitive enough to pick up the activity of individual brain cells.

To read the entire article, click HERE.