Internal sensors can provide otherwise unattainable data

Wearable technology has come a long way—and it’s about to go even further. Engineers from the University of California have designed wireless sensors the size of a piece of dust that can be implanted into the body to monitor internal organs, nerves and muscles.

The size of a 1 millimeter cube, the sensors contain a piezoelectric crystal to convert ultrasound vibrations from outside of the body into electricity. This electricity then powers a transistor, that is in contact with muscles or nerves, which sends a strike to the tissues. Stimulating the nerves and muscles, this technology can be used in patients suffering from epilepsy, inflammation and stimulate the immune system.

"I think the long-term prospects for neural dust are not only within nerves and the brain, but much broader," said Michel Maharbiz, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences and one of the study's two main authors. "Having access to in-body telemetry has never been possible because there has been no way to put something supertiny superdeep. But now I can take a speck of nothing and park it next to a nerve or organ, your GI tract or a muscle, and read out the data."

Though testing only has been done on muscles and peripheral nerves, the researchers hope to eventually use this technology on the central nervous system and brain to control prosthetic limbs.

"The vision is to implant these neural dust motes anywhere in the body, and have a patch over the implanted site send ultrasonic waves to wake up and receive necessary information from the motes for the desired therapy you want," said Dongjin Seo, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences. "Eventually you would use multiple implants and one patch that would ping each implant individually, or all simultaneously."