New tentacle electrodes to help with depression in future
Published: Wednesday, Sep 4th 2024, 10:00
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Zurich researchers want to use new tentacle electrodes to help people with neurological or psychiatric illnesses. The new electrodes can be used to precisely measure the activity of individual brain cells, ETH Zurich announced on Wednesday.
The electrodes, which look like thin tentacles, consist of bundles of extremely fine and flexible fibers made of gold. Researchers can slowly insert these bundles into the brain. According to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), they cause no detectable damage to the brain tissue.
According to the university, current electrodes work with relatively coarse probes. "The coarser the probe, the greater the risk of damaging the brain tissue," explained ETH researcher Mehmet Fatih Yanik, who developed the electrodes with his team, in the press release.
As the tentacle electrodes are very fine, they also fit between the elongated projections of the nerve cells in the brain, which enables more precise measurements.
So far, the electrodes have only been tested on rats. In future, however, the researchers also want to use the new electrodes to stimulate brain cells in humans.
In people with depression, schizophrenia or obsessive-compulsive disorder, for example, signals in the brain associated with the illness could be recognized and altered, according to the researchers. The researchers also want to use it to study how the brain processes memories.
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