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Wiring the Brain at the Nanoscale
Someday, nanowires routed to the brain through the circulatory system may help patients. Neuroscientist Rudolfo Llinas of the New York University School of Medicine and his colleagues envision an entire array of nanowires being connected to a catheter tube, which could then be guided through the circulatory system to the brain. Once there, the nanowires would spread into a kind of bouquet, branching out into tinier and tinier blood vessels until they reached specific locations. Each nanowire would then be used to record the electrical activity of a single nerve cells, or small groups of nerve cells.
Such a technique may one day allow doctors to monitor individual brain cells and perhaps provide new treatments for neurological diseases such as Parkinson's.
This image accompanied NSF press release, "Wiring the Brain at the Nanoscale."Wiring the Brain at the Nanoscale
Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation
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