A nonsurgical brain implant enabled through a cell–electronics hybrid for focal neuromodulation, 2025, Yadav et al

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A nonsurgical brain implant enabled through a cell–electronics hybrid for focal neuromodulation

Spoiler: Authors

Yadav, Shubham; Lee, Ray X.; Kajale, Shivam N.; Joy, Baju; Saha, Monochura; Patel, Preet; Bull, Loey; Cao, Sarah; Mitragotri, Samir; Bono, David; Sarkar, Deblina

Abstract
Bioelectronic implants for brain stimulation are used to treat brain disorders but require invasive surgery. To provide a noninvasive alternative, we report nonsurgical implants consisting of immune cell–electronics hybrids, an approach we call Circulatronics. The devices can be delivered intravenously and traffic autonomously to regions of inflammation in the brain, where they implant and enable neuromodulation, circumventing the need for surgery.

To achieve suitable electronics, we designed and built subcellular-sized, wireless, photovoltaic electronic devices that harvest optical energy with high power conversion efficiency.

In mice, we demonstrate nonsurgical implantation in an inflamed brain region, as an example of therapeutic target for several neural diseases, by employing monocytes as cells, covalently attaching them to the subcellular-sized, wireless, photovoltaic electronic devices and administering the resulting hybrids intravenously.

We also demonstrate neural stimulation with 30-µm precision around the inflamed region. Thus, by fusing electronic functionality with the biological transport and targeting capabilities of living cells, this technology can form the foundation for autonomously implanting bioelectronics.

Web | DOI | PDF | Nature Biotechnology | Open Access

 

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Also discussed in this article

Tiny chips hitch a ride on immune cells to sites of inflammation

Tiny chips can be powered by infrared light if they’re near the brain’s surface.

arstechnica.com

 

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A bit sci-fi you may say, but there’s some interesting merging of ideas here.

These things are tiny, but can still generate power

create devices with nanoscale thickness (about 200 nm) and different lateral length scales, ranging from diameters of 200 µm (>10 times the diameter of a monocyte) to 5 µm (subcellular size).

It is seen that these devices, even when scaled down to diameters ≤10 µm achieving subcellular sizes (and less than 0.01× volume of a cell with 12 µm diameter) can generate nanowatts of power

They seem to piggyback on immune cells ability to cross the blood brain barrier

We attached SWEDs onto the surface of immune cells (Fig. 3a,b), specifically monocytes, as they target the region of inflammation (Methods section ‘Creation of cell–electronics hybrids’) and can cross the blood–brain barrier

And use something called click chemistry to (which won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2022) to bind them to these cells.

We functionalized the surface of monocytes with azide groups, leveraging the available amines on the cell membrane proteins. On the other hand, we functionalized surface of the PEDOT PSS layer on our SWEDs with dibenzocyclooctyne (DBCO) groups, to attach them to the cells using Click chemistry

Being able to do things that currently require brain surgery and implants with an injection appears to be the focus. But the idea of one day using this technique as internal, temporary sensors is also really interesting I think.