The example of test prosthesis built by 3D printer

3D printing has been used in medicine since the early 2000s, when the technology was first used to make dental implants. Since then, the use of 3D printing in medicine has expanded significantly: Doctors from around the world describe ways to use 3D printing to produce ears, skeletal parts, airways, jawbone, eye parts, cell cultures, stem cells, blood vessels and vascular networks, tissues and organs, new drug forms, and much more.

Using model files for 3D printing provides an opportunity for sharing work among researchers. Instead of trying to reproduce parameters described in scientific journals, physicians can use and modify off-the-shelf 3D models. To that end, the National Institutes of Health established the 3dprint.nih.gov exchange in 2014 to facilitate the exchange of open-source 3D models for medical and anatomical products, non-standard equipment and mockups of proteins, viruses and bacteria.

Neuroanatomical models printed on a 3D printer can be particularly useful for neurosurgeons, providing insight into the most complex structures in the human body, which in principle cannot be obtained based on two-dimensional images.

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The field of brain implants is staggering in its scope. The main goal of most research is to create a bio-device that can stimulate certain areas of the brain. With the help of such influence it is realistic to restore vision and hearing after a stroke or head trauma, to alleviate the manifestations of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. The technology can also restore motor abilities in paralyzed patients.

In addition, some companies and research groups suggest the possibility of using neurochips to create neurocomputer interfaces. That is, such systems form a two-way or one-way direct connection between the computer and the brain to exchange information. At the same time, experiments on animals are regularly carried out; they are used both for the preliminary stage of tests before introduction to humans, and for measurements of brain activity for purely scientific purposes.

Brain implant systems are usually a direct chip, a battery for power, and a computer for control and imaging. The chip sends, blocks or records (and records and stimulates simultaneously) the electrical impulses of either an individual neuron or entire groups in specific parts of the brain. Until recently, the use of brain implants was limited or considered impossible due to the computational power of the computer and insufficient development of neurophysiology.

The power of thought

Before organizing full-fledged clinical trials in humans, scientists test developments and drugs on animals. In the case of brain implants, experiments on other biological species may be dictated not only by the need to comply with established rules, but also by the observation of brain activity of a particular species.

For example, back in 2006 the Medical College of Georgia conducted an experiment to study the process of functional adaptation of the brain in the process of learning sensory distinction. Monkeys’ brains were stimulated with electrodes and tried to teach them the connection between sound changes and rewards.

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