Scientists make bionic man a reality

Engineers in Wales have developed micro-needle array sensors that are around the size of a matchstick head and which could be implanted into the brain to help people move paralysed limbs.

The sensors, which were developed and manufactured by Cardiff University firm MicroBridge Services, comprise of 100 needles just thicker than a human hair.
They sit on the brain and send out nerve impulses to prosthetics.

MicroBridge Services was asked by researchers at Utah university in the United States to develop the micro-needle array sensors in tungsten carbide, an extremely hard material which conducts electricity.

The American team has been leading research in the area and has already been successful in developing an implant which can be used to manipulate computers and prosthetic appendages.

They need the needles, each of which can be up to several millimetres long, to penetrate into the brain to such a depth that they pick up electrical brain activity.

The electrical signals that are detected are amplified and then transmitted and interpreted to produce movements in the prosthetic limbs.

Patients using the implants must learn how to generate the correct mental activity to get responses from the system, but tests have already shown encouraging results.