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Aug 22, 2016

Research using sheep leads to a new device to record and stimulate the brain

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, neuroscience

The new BMI stentrode came from the research on sheep; nice to know for the next Trivia night at the local pub.


A group of Australian and American researchers have used sheep to develop and test a new device (original paper) – the stentrode – for recording electrical signals from inside the brain. The research was published in Nature Biotechnology. This new technology removes one of the main obstacles to developing efficient brain-computer interfaces: the need for invasive surgery.

The “stentrode” is a group of small (750 µm) recording electrodes attached to an intracranial endovascular stent, which allows implantation of the electrodes inside the brain without invasive surgery. This allows high quality recording or stimulation of specific areas of the brain, without many of the risks associated with invasive brain surgery.

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