In the context of the next
generation medicine with the far fetched possibility of eliminating the most
intriguing medicinal problems, Neuroprosthetics hold a special place in the
near future. The way, in which bio-sensors have been in use in the
last 25 years in developing methods to detect random fluctuations in the
biomolecules of our system, it will be the era where most of the medical
problems will be dealt via Neuroprosthetics.
Recently with the development of
ARGUS II, a solution to eradicate blindness just explains how microelectronics
and biology go hand in hand. The very concept of the image received being
processed by a video processing unit and being transmitted to our brain is
pretty much in line with the first application of Neuroprosthetics in cochlear
implants. It known so that the array of micro-electrodes that are
placed have specified functions, for example,
6-8 micro-electrodes are supposed to be the conveyor of the information,
implies that the temporal information is passed through them and the speech is
converted to noise. Least to say that cochlear implants are the most successful
case of Neuroprosthetics in use over the last two decades. Even before the
concept of ARGUS arose, it has always been the dream of neural researchers to
work on vision problems. Initially they thought of direct stimulation of the
visual area of the cerebral cortex but there were some mechanical problems
discovered specially with the increased use of microelectrodes. Nevertheless,
ARGUS after being in clinical trials for 3 years have finally been approved by
FDA and soon will be commercially produced.
One of the most common techniques
that orthopedics use is an amputation where the cases become severe with loss
of tissue damage or else they go by placing titanium plates as a support for
broken bones. In either way the patients have to undergo a lot of pain, and
physiotherapy. A lot of physiotherapists use the transcutaneous nervous
electrical stimulation (TENS) in order to treat pain.
The micro-electrodes are placed on the skin over the various muscles
and nerves. The electrically induced muscle contractions actually help to
build muscle strength and other bulk range of motion. The principle is the same
as that in normal pain treatment or in cases of muscle spasm in various regions
by heat. The electrical stimulations excite the nerve ending and the
transmission of impulse takes place via changes in membrane potential. The next
step to this very method will be direct injection of single channel
transmitters via hermetic packaging where they will be controlled by radio
frequency generated by magnetic fields placed outside the patient’s body.
By careful visionary we can see that
indeed with the advances in medical science and also the treatment procedures
due to constant work in the field of microelectronics and bio-sensors, the
problems of the external physical entity is being solved at a good pace.
The only question still remains is about the molecular level diagnostics and
its future.
Debanjan Kundu
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