MIT creates glucose fuel cell to power implanted brain-computer interfaces

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/130923-mit-creates-glucose-fuel-cell-to-power-implanted-brain-computer-interfaces

by adeelarshad82 • 14 years ago

72 43 14 years ago

extremetech.com

runako• 14 years ago

Link to the original article:

http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/glucose-fuel-cell-0612.ht...

mrose• 14 years ago

Very interesting... Only a few short years ago this entire article would have been science fiction.

From the article: "The platinum acts as a catalyst, stripping electrons from glucose molecules, similar to how aerobic animal cells (such as our own) strip electrons from glucose with enzymes and oxygen."

I wonder, and am curious to learn more about, how much of this process is really understood by modern science.

shiven• 14 years ago

Quite well understood actually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_respiration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_transport_chain

One of the fundamental biochemical pathways and required reading for entry level life-sciences degree programs.

lucaspiller• 14 years ago

What is the actual chemical reaction going on here?

stcredzero3• 14 years ago

We can have a better handle on what happens inside a given cell than the complex web of cause and effect that happens between populations of different kinds of cells and their environment.

What goes on inside your gut is still more of a mystery than what goes on inside your cells.

mindcruzer3• 14 years ago

Frighteningly well understood. The level of detail in which the electron transport chain is known is astonishing.

cdooh2• 14 years ago

Anyone else read this title and think "Finally they've figured a way to let us have hard drives connected to our brains" or was it just me?:-D The technology is certainly interesting...

blueprint• 14 years ago

Check this out http://www.quora.com/Neural-Interfaces/How-did-Stanford-use-...

slurgfest2• 14 years ago

Funny that you would say this just as I am dealing with the fallout of a failing drive...

cdooh2• 14 years ago

Good luck with that!! What tools are you using to retrieve the data? Or is it all gone?

smoyer• 14 years ago

I keep thinking "You will be assimilated" ... and it's simultaneously a scary idea and strangely desirable.

stcredzero3• 14 years ago

I keep thinking "You will be assimilated"

You're using the future tense. Sorry, but it's already happened.

and it's simultaneously a scary idea and strangely desirable.

Again, lots of precedent, and it's historical precedent.

TheSOB883• 14 years ago

I agree. Wake up, sheeple!

4rgento• 14 years ago

I think the glucose present in the cerebrospinal fluid is there for a reason. Probably not to power implants.

PS: I'm not a doctor.

debacle4• 14 years ago

Have you ever tasted cerebrospinal fluid? The glucose is definitely there for a reason.

mindcruzer3• 14 years ago

Actually, I'm not sure it is. Not for an energy related reason anyway. I'd wager the main reason the the glucose is present is due to osmolarity when the CSF is being created from the blood. Also realize that the CSF has a high turnover rate, something like 3-4 times per day, so that glucose is being replenished readily. I doubt this chip uses much glucose in comparison (plus, they've probably thought of this).

carbocation2• 14 years ago

Usually glucose is transported, as it doesn't freely pass through membranes. I believe the same is true for the glucose in the csf.

tocomment• 14 years ago

Could this be scaled up and used for weight loss?

daeken• 14 years ago

By what mechanism? Capturing and stripping the glucose before it's digested naturally? Seems a bit roundabout since the weight we want to lose (primarily fat) is really just an energy store in the body in the first place.

debacle4• 14 years ago

An artificial means of controlling blood sugar would alleviate the insulin cycle and prevent the body from storing blood sugar as fat.

jostmey• 14 years ago

These researchers are helping to remove one of the big problems with BMI chips - the wire protruding out of the head.

But these BMI chips still suffer from one other major problem. Over the course of a few months to a few years, scar tissue will start to grow around the chips. This tissue not only interferes with the electrodes on the chip, but also endangers the living tissue around the chip. The chips eventually have to be removed.

debacle4• 14 years ago

That's not necessarily true, depending on how the chips are implanted. We've been putting chunks of metal into people for 80 years and have gotten pretty good at it.

hermannj314• 14 years ago

Forget a brain implant. Can a device that lives on glucose help me lose weight?

rogerbinns2• 14 years ago

Or even just manage blood sugar levels. It would be an immense help to the folks with type 2 diabetes.

sp3323• 14 years ago

There are already small devices that regulate insulin levels. How would this improve on those?

MBlume2• 14 years ago

My first thought was "Does this mean if I want a BCI, I'll have to start eating sugar again?"

sp3323• 14 years ago

Your body uses glucose as fuel. You can generate it from other kinds of fuel sources, but unless you're in a diabetic coma, I guarantee your body has plenty of glucose in it.

Scaevolus• 14 years ago

Very little if you're on a ketogenic diet, which is often used for hard-to-treat epilepsy.

tomp• 14 years ago

Wow... My immediate idea is exactly the oposite from the one proposed in the article:

Have robots that can "live" by eating "food"! Imagine a robot, say a "spider" or a "mouse", that roams around a city, collecting food (and has a form of a "stomach", similar to say the one that cows have, where there are bacteria, dissolving food and producing glucose), and it can use that glucose to generate electricity, indefinitely... An interesting idea!

TheSOB883• 14 years ago

Bacteria actually do a lot of the digestion in a human as well.

dcreemer• 14 years ago

This is very interesting -- my son uses cochlear implants, which currently use external batteries and induction to provide power to the internal components. I wonder if there is enough power available to enable fully implantable hearing?

MIT creates glucose fuel cell to power implanted brain-computer interfaces

Related Stories