Super-Flexible Circuits Could Boost Smartphones, Bionic Limbs 16
Nerval's Lobster writes "The microelectronic sensors and mechanical systems built into smartphone cameras and other tiny electronic devices may soon evolve into microscopic, custom-printed versions designed as bionic body parts rather than smartphone components. Engineering researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a micro-printing process that can build microscopic microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) onto a flexible, non-toxic organic polymer designed for implantation in the human body. Current-generation MEMS are typically found in the accelerometers in smartphones, or the tiny actuator motors that focus cell-phone camera lenses. Most are made from substrates based on silicon, and built using techniques common to semiconductor fabrication. The new process, as described in the journal Microelectronic Engineering , relies on an organic polymer that is hundreds of times more flexible than conventional materials used for similar purposes. That flexibility not only makes the units easier to fit into the oddly shaped parts of a human body, it allows them to be made more sensitive to motion and energy-efficient. That alone would give a boost to the miniaturization of electronics, but the stretch and flex of the new materials could also serve as more comfortable and efficient replacements for current prosthetics that sense stimuli from an amputee's nervous system to power a prosthetic arm, for example, or operate a synthetic bladder."
Prosthetic inner ear. (Score:4, Informative)
A close relative of mine has MéniÃre's disease and resulting debilitating vertigo.
This is a horrible condition where failure of a pressure relief valve in the inner ear results in the progressive destruction of the inner ear's membranes, including those in the"rate gyros" and "linear accelerometers". This repeatedly changes the errors in the ear's balance signals, resulting in repeated and extreme triggering of a reflex apparently intended to eject neurotoxic poisons: Extreme "seasickness", fall down, projectile vomiting and diarrhea, can't even crawl, let alone stand, for several hours. After a couple days the new error is "mapped out" - then another tear in a membrane creates a new error, and repeat.
Meanwhile the loss of the balance signals means additional dependence on vision - and thus bone-breaking falls and additional nausea attacks and headaches (it's related to migraine) from flickering lights and confusing background images. (Even flickers far faster than the fusion rate causes attacks, apparently by delaying and distorting visual location cues during motion.)
It is so debilitating that a substantial fraction of the victims commit suicide.
Biocompatible MEMS systems could be used to create an implantable prosthetic replacement for the balance sensors. (We already know the signal can be coupled to the nerves in question magnetically.) This could result in restoration of the balance function and thus an effective treatment.