injectable mesh electronics

A flexible, net-like electronic mesh built from nanowires, thin and soft enough to be drawn into a syringe and injected into the brain, where it unfolds and records neural activity. The mesh is about 90 per cent open space, like chicken wire, and is far more flexible than earlier implants, so brain tissue grows around and through it.

It was demonstrated in mice by a Harvard research group and published in Nature Nanotechnology in 2015. In that work, the mesh connected by wires to recording equipment outside the head; it was not wireless.

“Neural lace” is a science-fiction term (from Iain M. Banks’s novels) that was later applied to this kind of work.

Related terms: neural interface, nanomaterial, hardware, neural dust

Sources: Syringe-injectable electronics — Liu et al., Nature Nanotechnology (2015); Injecting electronics into brain not as freaky as it sounds — National Geographic (2015)