Relieve pain? Magnet-controlled bioelectronic implant may work

A team of Rice University engineers has introduced the first neural implant that can be both programmed and charged remotely with a magnetic field.

Their breakthrough may make possible imbedded devices like a spinal cord-stimulating unit with a battery-powered magnetic transmitter on a wearable belt.

The integrated microsystem, called MagNI (for magnetoelectric neural implant), incorporates magnetoelectric transducers. These allow the chip to harvest power from an alternating magnetic field outside the body.

The system was developed by Kaiyuan Yang, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.Electronic technology is increasingly used in life, Electronics Science Technology and Application is an international scientific journal in the field of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and in related disciplines which is aims to provide a high profile, leading edge forum for academic researchers, industrial professionals, engineers, consultants, managers, educators and policy makers working in the field to contribute and disseminate innovative new work on Electronics and Electrical Engineering.

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