“Most implantable systems are built around a canister of electronics that occupies enormous volumes of space inside the body,” says Shepard, who led the project\u2019s engineering, and is Lau Family Professor of Electrical Engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and professor of neurological sciences at Columbia University.<\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t mean Shepard is offering no hope \u2013 far from it. Indeed, he\u2019s on a team of researchers from the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science and Stanford\u2019s Enigma Project whose remarkable new BCI \u2013 the Biological Interface System to Cortex (BISC) \u2013 may offer permanent liberation.<\/p>\n
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The device is just 50 micrometers thick \u2013 about the thickness of a human hair<\/p>\n
Columbia University<\/p>\n
As main clinical collaborator and Columbia assistant professor of neurological surgery Brett Youngerman explains, the BISC is a vast improvement for patients needing somatic relief that a BCI should be able to provide. \u201cThe key to effective brain-computer interface devices is to maximize the information flow to and from the brain,\u201d says Youngerman, \u201cwhile making the device as minimally invasive in its surgical implantation as possible. BISC surpasses previous technology on both fronts.”<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because unlike those bulky canisters that Shepard described, the paper-thin BISC, says Youngerman, \u201ccan be inserted through a minimally invasive incision in the skull and slid directly onto the surface of the brain in the subdural space.\u201d Even better, the BISC has neither wires nor brain-penetrating electrodes, an improvement that reduces \u201ctissue reactivity and signal degradation over time.”<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s the secret to BISC\u2019s superior design? Superconductors, a proven technology and manufacturing method which unlocks BISC\u2019s future of mass production.<\/p>\n
“Semiconductor technology has made this possible,\u201d says Shepard, because semiconductors allow miniaturization that shrinks the processing might of computers from the volume of multiple bank vaults to size of a single wallet. \u201cWe are now doing the same for medical implantables, allowing complex electronics to exist in the body while taking up almost no space.”<\/p>\n
Combining three semiconductor technologies onto one chip, the high-bandwidth yet wireless BISC is a BCI on a single silicon chip a mere 50 micrometers thick. With 65,536 electrodes, 1,024 recording channels, and 16,384 stimulation channels, the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit is less than a thousandth the volume of typical brain implants and, like a licked stamp, can curve to stick to almost any surface \u2013\u00a0in this case, that of the brain.<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s so small and thin (even though it contains analogue components for recording and stimulation, plus a wireless power circuit and power management, a radio transceiver, and digital control electronics), the stamp-sized BISC can be implanted through a tiny opening in the skull. Its external relay station can connect the BISC to any computer with throughput of 100 Mbps, a hundred times greater than that of any rival wireless BCI.<\/p>\n
Using AI models, the BISC decodes high-bandwidth recordings to identify body motion, sensory information, brain states, and even intent. As Shepard explains, \u201cBy integrating everything on one piece of silicon, we’ve shown how brain interfaces can become smaller, safer, and dramatically more powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n