Northwestern scientists Develop wireless Device to Directly Stimulate the Brain with Light
Northwestern University scientists have developed a wireless device that uses light to send information directly to the brain, bypassing the body’s natural sensory pathways.This represents a new leap for neurobiology and bioelectronics.
The soft, flexible device sits under the scalp but on top of the skull, delivering precise patterns of light through the bone to activate neurons across the cortex.
In experiments, scientists used the device’s tiny, patterned bursts of light to activate specific populations of neurons deep inside the brains of mouse models. (These neurons were genetically modified to respond to light.) The mice quickly learned to interpret these patterns as meaningful signals, recognizing and using them to successfully complete behavioral tasks-even without touch, sight, or sound.
The technology holds immense potential for therapeutic applications, including providing sensory feedback for prosthetic limbs, delivering artificial stimuli for future vision or hearing prostheses, modulating pain perception without opioids or systemic drugs, enhancing rehabilitation after stroke or injury, and controlling robotic limbs with the brain.
The study will be published on Monday (Dec. 8) in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
“Our brains are constantly turning electrical activity into experiences, and this technology gives us a way to tap into that process directly,” said Northwestern neurobiologist Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy, who led the experimental work. “This platform lets us create entirely new signals and see how the brain learns to use them. It brings us just a little bit closer to restoring lost senses after injuries or disease while offering a window into the basic principles that allow us to perceive the world.”
“Developing this device required rethinking how to deliver patterned stimulation to the brain in a format that is both minimally invasive and fully implantable,” said Northwestern bioelectronics pioneer John A. Rogers, who led the technology development. “By integrating a soft, conformable array of micro-LEDs-each as small as a single strand of human hair-with a wirelessly powered control module, we created a system that can be programmed in real time while remaining entirely beneath the skin, without any measurable effect on natural behaviors of the animals. It represents a critically important step forward in building devices that can interface with the brain without the need for burdensome wires or bulky external hardware. it’s valuable both in the immediate term for basic neuroscience research and in the longer term for addressing health challenges in humans.”
Kozorovitskiy is the Irving M. Klotz Professor of Neurobiology in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She also is a member of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute. Rogers is the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Neurological Surgery in the McCormick School of Engineering and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.