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posted by n1 on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the brain-food dept.

A team of researchers has inserted approximately 20 billion nanoparticles into the brains of mice. According to the abstract, about 10 µg of CoFe2O4–BaTiO3 30-nm nanoparticles were injected into the tail veins of mice, and then forced to cross the blood-brain barrier using a magnetic field:

Sakhrat Khizroev of Florida International University in Miami and his team inserted 20 billion of these nanoparticles into the brains of mice. They then switched on a magnetic field, aiming it at the clump of nanoparticles to induce an electric field. An electroencephalogram showed that the region surrounded by nanoparticles lit up, stimulated by this electric field that had been generated.

"When [magnetoelectric nanoparticles] are exposed to even an extremely low frequency magnetic field, they generate their own local electric field at the same frequency," says Khizroev. "In turn, the electric field can directly couple to the electric circuitry of the neural network."

Khizroev's goal is to build a system that can both image brain activity and precisely target medical treatments at the same time. Since the nanoparticles respond differently to different frequencies of magnetic field, they can be tuned to release drugs.

"When [they are] injected in the brain, we can 'see' the brain and if necessary, we can release a specific drug inside a specific neuron on demand," says Khizroev. His team has already shown that the particles can be used to carry and release an anti-HIV drugs, as well as the cancer drug paclitaxel.

Although beyond the scope of current research, Khizroev's nanoparticle system may offer a new way to interact with computers. He hasn't tried it yet, but he says running it in reverse, so that the nanoparticles produce a measurable magnetic field in response to the brain's own electrical fields, is possible. Our brain states would then become input parameters for computers, which would be able to directly stimulate specific regions of the brain in return.


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  • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:22PM

    by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:22PM (#194248)

    Better Than Life chips, here we come, I guess.

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  • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:55PM

    by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:55PM (#194272)

    Chip head.

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