In 2004, André Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester in England made a breakthrough when… Graphene isolated for the first timeGraphene, a flat form of carbon made up of a single layer of atoms, is the thinnest known material and one of the strongest. Hailed as a wonder material, it earned Geim and Novoselov a prize Nobel Prize in 2010.
Twenty years later, graphene is finally making its way into batteries, sensors, semiconductors, air conditioners and even headphones. And now, it’s being tested on human brains.
This morning, surgeons at the University of Manchester temporarily placed a thin, duct-tape-like implant made of graphene into the patient’s cerebral cortex (the outermost layer of the brain). Made by Spanish company InBrain Neuroelectronics, the technology is a type of brain-computer interface — a device that collects and decodes brain signals. InBrain is one of several companies, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink, developing BCIs.
“Our goal is to have a commercial product that can decode and map the brain and that can be used in a variety of disorders,” says Carolina Aguilar, CEO and co-founder of InBrain.
Brain mapping is a technique used to plan brain surgeries. When a brain tumor is removed, for example, surgeons place electrodes in the brain to determine the location of motor and speech function in the brain so they can safely remove the tumor without affecting the patient’s ability to move or speak.
During today’s surgery, the implant remained in place for 79 minutes. The patient was already undergoing brain surgery to remove a tumor and had given his consent for the experiment. During that time, researchers observed that the InBrain device was able to differentiate between healthy and cancerous brain tissue with micrometer-level precision.
The University of Manchester is the site of InBrain’s first human study, which will test the graphene device on up to 10 patients already undergoing brain surgery for other reasons. The aim of the study, which is funded by the European Commission’s United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), is to assess the device’s effectiveness in breast cancer patients. Graphene’s flagship The aim of the project is to demonstrate the safety of graphene in direct contact with the human brain.
David Coope, the neurosurgeon who performed the procedure, says the InBrain device is more flexible than a conventional electrode, allowing it to better conform to the surface of the brain. “From a surgical perspective, it means we can probably put it in places where we would find it difficult to put an electrode,” he says. The main electrodes used for brain mapping are platinum-iridium discs fixed in silicon. “So they are reasonably stiff,” Coope says.
The InBrain device, by contrast, is a transparent sheet that sits on the surface of the brain. It is half the thickness of a human hair and contains 48 tiny graphene decoding electrodes that measure just 25 micrometers each. The company is developing a second type of implant that penetrates brain tissue and can deliver precise electrical stimulation.
The Surface device can only be used for brain mapping, but Aguilar says the company is also integrating the two devices and plans to eventually test them together as a treatment for neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease.