The UMH creates a pioneering technique to implant microelectrodes with a robot in the brains of blind people

The project consists of developing a brain implant that can help blind people improve their mobility or perceive their surroundings.

   ALICANTE, 7 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Researchers from the Miguel Hernández University (UMH), in collaboration with the IMED Hospital of Elche and the Alicante Health and Biomedical Research Institute (Isabial), have developed a technique to implant microelectrodes in the brain of blind people with the help of a robot, with the aim of "safely" accessing the surface of the brain.

This technique, "pioneering" in the world of medicine, uses Medtronic's 'Stealth Autoguide' robot and an advanced neuronavigation system that allows neurosurgery staff to perform the implant in a "minimally invasive" way, according to the academic institution. it's a statement.

The Elche university has highlighted that "hopeful" results have already been obtained, although it has specified that this is research "in progress", which is not yet ready to be applied to the general public.

Implantation of microelectrode arrays in the human brain serves to stimulate the visual cortex in a controlled manner in people who have lost all or part of their vision due to, for example, glaucoma or retinitis.

The team of researchers, led from the UMH, has successfully carried out the first implantation of brain microelectrodes in a blind person using this new procedure at the IMED Elche Hospital and hopes to be able to use this new technique in the next blind volunteers who collaborate in their research. .

The work has been published in the 'Journal of Neurosurgery'. The new technique is part of a project directed by the Biomedical Neuroengineering group of the Bioengineering Institute of the UMH of Elche.

The project consists of developing a new brain implant that, through microelectrodes, can help blind people or people with low residual vision to improve their mobility and even, in a "more ambitious" way, to perceive the environment around them and orient yourself in it.

The director of the project and also a member of the Networked Biomedical Research Center in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine, Eduardo Fernández, explained that this technology implies being able to "safely" access the surface of the brain.

"To this end, we have been working for several years on the improvement of surgical techniques for the implantation of cerebral microelectrode arrays in close collaboration with the Neurosurgery Service of the General University Hospital of Alicante and the IMED Elche Hospital," he noted.

Likewise, he pointed out that the new technology they have developed has also had the collaboration of Medtronic, a leading company in the medical technology sector, and Germán Sempere and the company 3DNeurotrainer of Ibi, which "created an exact replica of the head of the volunteer patient to be able to carry out advanced planning of the surgery.

This is the first time that an implant of this type of microelectrodes has been performed with the help of a surgical robot. "The results are encouraging, since this technique allows implantation to be carried out in a more precise and less invasive way, which improves clinical results and reduces the risks of complications," the expert stressed.

For his part, Dr. Pablo González, coordinator of the neurosurgery team that performed the intervention, has also pointed out that the robotic system makes it possible to guide the insertion of the electrodes and perform the surgery through a small millimeter hole, which avoids having than performing a craniotomy or opening of the skull.

The researchers have detailed that the robot allows the position and orientation of the microelectrodes to be adjusted "in real time and in a very precise way", which reduces damage to brain structures.

To do this, they use a system similar to a GPS that is based on images previously obtained by magnetic resonance and computed tomography. The precision achieved with this minimally invasive technique means that people participating in the study can be discharged "early" and have "much less discomfort" than in a normal postoperative period. In addition, it also positively affects the quality of visual perceptions induced by the implanted microelectrodes.

In the context of this research, UMH professor Eduardo Fernández has highlighted that the development of visual cerebral neuroprostheses is "a clear need for the future, since unfortunately for many blind people there are no useful treatments or assistive devices."

In this sense, it has exemplified that patients with very advanced retinal degenerative diseases, people with severe glaucoma or people with optic nerve disorders cannot benefit from the retinal prostheses that are currently being developed.

In these cases it is necessary to send information from the environment in front of the blind person directly to the part of the brain that processes vision. Preliminary results from the UMH group suggest that this approach could help provide a limited but useful view of the environment, especially for tasks such as orientation and mobility. However, he also pointed out that it is a "very complex" field and that it is necessary to "move forward little by little and not create false expectations."

The study has been funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the European Commission within the H2020 program, within the framework of the NeuraViper and Entrainvision projects.