Neural Dust: A platform for next generation neural interfaces and medical diagnostics

The emerging field of bioelectronic medicine seeks methods for deciphering and modulating physiological activity in the body for both sensing and therapy. Current approaches to interfacing directly with organs and nerves rely heavily on wires, creating problems for chronic use, while emerging wireless approaches do not scale down into the sub-millimeter size range necessary to be truly "transparent" to the body. Recently, we demonstrated neural dust, a wireless and scalable ultrasonic backscatter system for powering and communicating with implanted bioelectronics. In this talk, I will present the technology and material challenges in the space and discuss the neural dust technology as a platform for vanishingly small implantables.

Speaker: Michel Maharbiz, UC Berkeley