Neural lace

A way of connecting neurons to an electronic mesh a "wireless brain-computer interface"

Neural lace has been invented to organically connect your brain with a computer

Neural lace has been invented to organically connect your brain with a computer.

Scientists from China and the US have found a pioneering way to inject a tiny electronic mesh sensor into the brain that fully integrates with cerebral matter and enables computers to monitor brain activity.

Researchers from Harvard and the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology in Beijing have succeeded in inventing a flexible electrical circuit that fits inside a 0.1mm-diameter glass syringe in a water-based solution.

The mice who received the implants are thriving and while today they need to be connected by a wire to the computer so their brain activity can be monitored, in the future this could be wireless, and the same technique could be used to integrate an electric mesh with a human brain.When injected into the brains of mice, the mesh unfurled to 30 times its size and mouse brain cells grew around the mesh, forming connections with the wires in the flexible mesh circuit. The biochemical mouse brain completely accepted the mechanical component and integrated with it without any damage being caused to the mouse.

For more information (External links)

Skin based sensors

Most skin-based interfaces consist of electronics embedded in a substance, like plastic, that is then stuck onto the skin. Problem is, the plastic is often rigid or it doesn’t let you move and sweat, scientists use a material that dissolves under water, leaving the electronic part directly on the skin and comfortable to bend and wear. Twenty participants wore it on their skin for a week without problems. They didn’t get itchy or irritated, and the wearable didn’t break.

There’s been a lot of interest in skin-based interfaces that remotely control a phone or turning skin into a touchscreen for a smartwatch. Those are cool tricks, but health monitoring is higher priority. Almost all kinds of medical monitoring — from measuring brain signals or heart beats — means putting electrodes on the skin. This is fine for the lab, but not convenient if you need to continually monitor these vital signals at home.

Gold nanomesh conductor

This new system uses a mesh made of a material called polyvinyl alcohol that’s already used in contact lenses and artificial cartilage. First, the scientists used electrical force to created charged threads of the material. (This is called electrospinning.) These threads were coated in gold to make them more electrically conductive. You put the entire thing on skin — in this case, the hand — and spray on some water. The polyvinyl alcohol disappears, but the gold threads are still there, and it can be used to power a LED light, or transmit data to a laptop.