Scientific Talks

Presentation: Wireless Miniature Medical Robots for Neurological Applications

Abstract: Wireless miniature medical robots have the unique capability of navigating, operating and staying inside risky and currently hard- or impossible-to-reach small spaces inside the human body, such as brain. To treat neurological disorders minimally invasively inside brain, wireless milli- or microscale robots can stimulate neurons and have other medical functions locally on demand. In this direction, magnetopiezoelectric nanoparticles are injected next to the sub-thalamus region for treating the Parkinson’s disease via wireless deep brain neural stimulation. Alternating external magnetic fields induce local charges to stimulate the neighboring neurons. Neural stimulation results are demonstrated in in-vitro and in-vivo rat preliminary tests. Next, a wireless magnetic milliscale robot is designed to penetrate and navigate through brain tissue using external magnetic forces under x-ray fluoroscopy imaging inside a porcine brain tissue ex vivo. Finally, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners can be used to image, track and actuate wireless magnetic millirobots inside brain. Preliminary MRI-powered robot navigation and remote heating-based medical functions are demonstrated in synthetic mockups. Such wireless millirobots would be used in future neurological stimulation/recording and brain cancer treatment applications.