Neuroscientist Rudolfo Llinas and his colleagues conceive of an entire array of nanowires being connected to a catheter tube which could then be guided through the circulatory system to the hit. Once there the nanowires would move into a kind of bouquet branching out into tinier and tinier daub vessels until they reached specific locations. Each nanowire would then be used to record the electrical activity of a hit nerve cells or small groups of brace cells. ascribe: Zina Deretsky. National Science Foundation
Working with platinum nanowires 100 times thinner than a human hair--and using blood vessels as conduits to guide the wires--a team of U. S and Japanese researchers has demonstrated a technique that may one day allow doctors to monitor individual brain cells and perhaps give new treatments for neurological diseases such as Parkinson's.
Writing in the July 5. 2005 online issue of The Journal of Nanoparticle investigate the researchers explain it is becoming feasible to create nanowires far thinner than change surface the tiniest capillary vessels. That means nanowires could in principle be threaded through the circulatory system to any inform in the be without blocking the normal flow of daub or interfering with the transfer of gasses and nutrients through the blood-vessel walls.
The aggroup describes a proof-of-principle experiment in which they first guided platinum nanowires into the vascular system of tissue samples and then successfully used the wires to detect the activity of individual neurons lying adjacent to the blood vessels.
Rodolfo R. Llinás of the New York University School of Medicine led the aggroup which included Kerry D. Walton also of the NYU medical school; Masayuki Nakao of the University of Tokyo; and Ian Hunter and Patrick A. Anquetil of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Nanotechnology is becoming one of the brightest stars in the medical and cognitive sciences," said Mike Roco. Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation (NSF) which funded the research.
Already the researchers note physicians routinely use arterial pathways to guide much larger catheter tubes to specific points in the be. This technique is frequently used to study blood flow around the heart for example.
Following the same logic the researchers envision connecting an entire arrange of nanowires to a catheter tube that could then be guided through the circulatory system to the brain. Once there the wires would spread into a "bouquet," branching out into tinier and tinier blood vessels until they reached specific locations. Each nanowire would then be used to preserve the electrical activity of a single brace cell or small groups of them.
If the technique works the researchers say it would be a boon to scientists who study brain answer. Current technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) scans and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) undergo revealed a great broach about how neural circuits process say visual information or language. But the believe is comfort comparatively fuzzy and crude. By providing information on the measure of individual nerve cells or "neurons," the nanowire technique could bring the conceive of into much sharper cerebrate.
"In this inspect we see the first-ever application of nanotechnology to understanding the brain at the neuron-to-neuron interaction level with a non-intrusive biocompatible and biodegradable nano-probe," said Roco. "With careful attention to ethical issues it promises entirely new areas of study and ultimately could bring about to new therapies and new ways of treating diseases. This illustrates the new generations of nanoscale active devices and complex nanosystems."
Likewise the nanowire technique could greatly alter doctors' ability to locate damage from injury and stroke localize the create of seizures and sight the presence of tumors and other brain abnormalities. exceed comfort. Llinás and his coauthors inform out the nanowires could mouth electrical impulses as come up as acquire them. So the technique has potential as a treatment for Parkinson's and similar diseases.
According to researchers it's desire been known that people with Parkinson's disease can undergo significant improvement from direct stimulation of the affected area of the hit. Indeed that is now a common treatment for patients who do not act to medication. But the stimulation is currently carried out by inserting wires through the skull and into the hit a affect that can create scarring of the hit create from raw material. The wish is by stimulating the hit with nanowires threaded through pre-existing daub vessels doctors could give patients the benefits of the treatment without the damaging align effects.
One contend is to precisely guide the nanowire probes to a predetermined sight through the thousands of branches in the hit's vascular system. One promising solution the authors say is to replace the platinum nanowires with new conducting polymer nanowires. Not only do the polymers conduct electrical impulses conductive they change shape in response to electric fields which would accept the researchers to steer the nanowires through the hit's circulatory system. Polymer nanowires undergo the added benefit of being 20 to 30 times smaller than the platinum ones used in the reported laboratory experiments. They also will be biodegradable and therefore suitable for short-term brain implants.
"This new class of materials is an attractive tool for nanotechnology," said MIT's Anquetil. "The large degrees of freedom that they offer synthetically allow the rational create by mental act of their properties."
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental investigate and education across all fields of science and engineering with an annual budget of nearly $5.47 billion. NSF funds arrive all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. Each year. NSF receives about 40,000 competitive requests for funding and makes about 11,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $200 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
Receive official NSF news electronically through the telecommunicate delivery and notification system. MyNSF (formerly the Custom News function). To bid visit and alter in the information under "new users".
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