斯坦福大学工程学院的研究人员开发出一种新型芯片类移植物，其独特之处在于可利用超声波进行无线充电。该技术旨在解决深部植入微型芯片的供电难题，降低患者接受移植的成本并提高安全性，尤其适用于帕金森病等神经系统疾病的治疗。
传统生物智能芯片大小与圆珠笔笔尖相仿，而Amin Arbabian等人希望将尺寸再缩小至原来的十分之一。改造后的芯片通过压电效应充电：超声波作用于压电材料时，材料以每秒百万次的频率震荡，产生电流为芯片供能。芯片还内置天线，可实时传输体内状况。斯坦福大学科学家计划将其用于疼痛传感器。
这项研究代表了生物电子疗法（electroceuticals）的潮流。神经元信号通过电信号传导，其异常可导致多种神经系统疾病。美国政府启动的BRAIN计划已划拨大量经费用于开发此类仪器，预计该疗法将获得广泛应用。
详细英文报道：
Stanford University seems to have found a niche in developing tiny wireless implants. In the latest innovation, the university announced that it is working on methods of beaming ultrasound to power implanted "smart chips" for the treatment of conditions like Parkinson's disease.
"Many biosensing and stimulation applications require small, deep medical implants," said electrical engineer professor Amin Arbabian, in a university statement. "We believe our platform provides the recipe for building small devices that can be powered wirelessly and programmed to perform a wide array of tasks."
The smart chip is about the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, but Arbabian and other Stanford engineers are trying to create an implant one-tenth that size.
Ultrasounds powers the chip implant via piezoelectricity, or electricity caused by pressure, the release explains. Mounted to the chip is a small piece of piezoelectric material that moves in a springlike function when struck by ultrasound waves. "The implant is like an electrical spring that compresses and decompresses a million times a second, providing electrical charge to the chip," said graduate student Marcus Weber in the release.
Stanford wants to utilize the chip to run sensors or deliver electricity to the site of pain. The implant has a built-in radio antenna to transmit information.
The device is an example of the growing trend of "electroceuticals" and has many applications toward studying or treating conditions of the central nervous system and brain, something which the government is pushing via the $79 million BRAIN initiative.
"U.S. and European brain initiatives are pushing for a more complete understanding of the central nervous system," said Florian Solzbacher, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Utah, in the release. "This requires being able to interface with cells using arrays of micro implants across the entire 3D structure of the brain."
Led by one of FierceMedicalDevices' women in med tech, Ada Poon, Stanford has been developing a variety of mini wireless implants lately. Earlier this year Poon's lab built an experimental, pacemaker-like device that is smaller than a grain of rice and can be wirelessly charged from outside the body.