China is creating a tiny, worm-like robot that crawls into people’s BRAINS
CHINA has built a tiny worm-like robot that can crawl into people’s brains – and they claim it could revolutionize surgery and save thousands of lives.
Chinese scientists claim the near-microscopic ‘microfibrebot’ can reduce the risk of brain aneurysm bleeding and ‘starve’ brain tumors, forcing them to shrink.
The small robot would be inserted into people’s brains using a thin, flexible catheter tube.
The slightly less than half a millimeter long robot, which was shaped like a helix, would then ‘crawl’ through the brain.
Doctors would control the little bot using magnets – and the robot’s changing flexible shape could allow it to block problem blood vessels.
It could then repair aneurysms or “starve” tumors.
The bot was developed by Chinese scientists from several universities, including in Wuhan, Hefei and Shanghai.
The research and design of the robot were published in the leading journal Science Robotics.
Brain aneurysms and tumors are some of the leading causes of death worldwide.
They require extensive and complicated procedures for treatments
More than 750,000 people die every year as a result of life-threatening conditions or procedural complications.
One of the first steps doctors take to treat such diseases is to cut off blood flow by placing a thin tube in the target area and closing off the blood vessels.
However, this method is limited due to the “poor stability and controllability” of the tube inserted into the brain, the experts argued.
They said this also exposes surgeons to radiation for long periods because the procedure is performed manually under an X-ray.
We envision that our magnetic, soft microfiber bots will pave the way for the untethered robotic embolization of brain aneurysms and brain tumors in the future.
Chinese researchers
And so they believe the little robot is the best way forward for this kind of challenging work on the brain.
The small robot – barely half a millimeter in size, can change size by stretching or retracting – and can be steered up and down using magnetic fields.
The coiled form provides greater control and accuracy than other conventional methods used to treat these conditions
It can then be controlled by doctors who can track its movement using X-ray images.
Melisa Yashinski, editor-in-chief of the magazine, wrote: ‘The microfiber bot, consisting of a magnetized fiber coiled into a spiral shape, can adapt to different ship sizes and performs a corkscrew drive when exposed to an external magnetic field.
“These proposed robots provide a controllable alternative to conventional catheter-based embolization.”
Once the robot is on target, it can perform embolization to reduce bleeding from aneurysms.
And to treat brain tumors, the advanced bots can send particles into a vascular branch to “starve the tumor for accelerated removal.”
Cutting off the blood supply to a tumor causes it to stop growing – and can even shrink the tumor by killing cells, the paper said.
While testing on a ship model, the development team found that these robots had a particle blocking rate as high as 88 percent.
The robots were also tested on the hind legs of rabbits, where the robots continued to block blood flow and tests on the rabbit organs found “no inflammation or pathological abnormalities.”
Although researchers have cautioned that the robot is still in the early stages of development, they concluded that the robot has extreme potential to revolutionize brain surgery.
“We envision that our magnetic soft microfiber bots will pave the way for the untethered robotic embolization of brain aneurysms and brain tumors in the future,” the researchers said.