Neural Dust: The Next Big Thing in Neurotechnology?

It’s supposedly one of the top new brain technologies to watch for this year, but what exactly is it?

Neural Dust (or neural grains) is a cluster of tiny, implantable, wireless electromagnetic interfaces (approximately the size of of a salt grain — yes, that tiny). They were designed by many leading researchers and universities (namely UC Berkeley and Brown) for a variety of applications.

Researchers from UC Berkeley have been able to demonstrate that when implanted into nerves, the neural grains could record signals from the nerves and wirelessly transmit information. It has not been adapted to human systems (yet) but once it is, it can possibly provide a new window through which we can see the human nervous system!

Another application being researched is the use of these tiny devices to stimulate nerves with pulses of electricity, as opposed to just detecting them (creating the smallest nerve stimulators so far). This could eventually mean advances in treatment of various types of musco-skeletal and neural conditions, like blocking migraine headaches! Other researchers are aiming to obtain the neural code for essential day to day functions like walking. By doing this, there’s a possibility that they can eventually help paralyzed individuals walk again by programming implanted neural dust to emit the specific neural code.

So far, there is still work to be done before neural dust can be used on humans. But once it does, as it further integrates biology and electronics together, to what extent can it advance the neurotechnology field?