Researchers have developed foldable brain electrodes, which could potentially reduce the need for invasive surgeries to treat epilepsy.
The breakthrough could soon minimise the need for invasive brain surgeries thanks to researchers’ innovative work at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge.
The team created ‘origami-inspired’ brain electrodes capable of folding into a fraction of their full size – significantly reducing the surgical footprint required to treat neurological conditions such as epilepsy.
Traditionally, measuring brain electrical activity for conditions like epilepsy involves performing a craniotomy to remove a large section of the skull to place electrodes directly onto the brain’s surface.
An invasive process, it comes with significant risks, including prolonged recovery and increased infection susceptibility.
However, the newly developed folding electrodes could change this.
According to a study published in Nature Communications, the device’s design reduces the incision area needed by up to five times without compromising functionality.
Associate Professor Christopher Proctor from the University of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science said: ‘This study presents a new approach to directly interfacing with large areas of the brain through keyhole-like surgery. The potential significance of this work is twofold: it offers a less invasive diagnostic tool for epilepsy patients, and the minimally invasive nature of the device could enable new applications in brain-machine interfaces.’
When fully expanded, the device appears as a flat, rectangular silicone wafer embedded with 32 electrodes.
The wafer, about 70 microns thick – roughly the width of a human hair – is folded accordion-style, allowing it to be inserted through a tiny 6 mm incision.
Once positioned on the brain’s surface, the device is unfolded by inflating a pressurised fluid-filled chamber, expanding to cover an area up to 600 mm².
In contrast, removing an equivalent-sized section of the skull to accommodate a non-folding electrode array of the same size would be difficult.
The researchers tested the device on anaesthetised pigs at the Universities of Cambridge and Bologna, confirming that the unfolded electrodes could accurately detect and record brain activity.
These promising results suggest the potential for human clinical trials within a few years.
Dr Lawrence Coles of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering said: ‘We are now working with clinical partners to refine the design and start trials in human patients within two years. Besides epilepsy, this approach could be used to diagnose and treat other conditions that result in brain seizures, such as certain brain tumours.’
In addition to treating epilepsy, the foldable electrodes could streamline the installation of brain-computer interfaces, potentially benefiting people with disabilities and advancing human-computer interactions.
‘Brain-computer interfaces are an incredibly fast-moving and promising development area,’ Dr Coles added. ‘A particularly exciting area is direct speech decoding, where electrodes measure signals directly from the brain's surface to translate what the person is trying to say.’
