It grows and is able to ‘hack’ the brain

The works Cyberpunk They are continuously human improved thanks to bioimplants. A decade ago It seemed somewhat distantbut recent years we have Taken leaps In that machine-corebro connection with Implants such as Neuralink. Make our brain feel as part of the body that are not an achievement, and precisely that is what Massachusetts researchers are experiencing with a very clear objective:

‘Hack’ our brain with dental implants that feel really teeth.

Bioengineering. We carry more than a decade investigating how to make the teeth grow again. Different centers have been all this time experimenting with stem cells with the aim of filling that cavity resulting from the fall of a tooth with living fabric that restores the fallen piece. The reason is that it is always preferable to have a piece with real dental material because it offers something that an implant, at least for the moment, is unable to give: tooth-cerebro connection.

Intelligent implant. Feeling a natural part of the body is the Great objective of bioengineering for both the teeth and limbs that are missing and in which We have placed a prosthesis. The Last advances They arrive from researchers at the Faculty of Dental Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tufts.

Have developed what describe As an “intelligent implant”, an artificial tooth such as any common implant, but with an outer layer that is in what is that “bio” part of “engineering.” It is a coating that contains stem cells and a specific protein that allows those cells to mature to develop nervous tissue.

Hacking The brain. Jake Jinkun Chen is a professor of periodontics at the Faculty of Dental Medicine of the Center and comments that “the natural teeth connect to the jaw through a soft tissue rich in nerves. It is what helps perceive both pressure and texture and works as a guide in chewing and speech.”

A point that “implants do not have that sensory feedback” because they are ceramic crowns on titanium post -shaped postanium posts that anchor the jaw and, although they are useful, they feel like a strange object in our mouth.

Advances. To place one of these implants is also very invasive and, although it is a “chewed” process by surgeons due to the amount of operations that are carried out, there is always the risk of causing local or worse trauma: damage some nerve. Although everything comes out perfectly, as we say, we will not feel the piece as we do with a real tooth.

The implant that they are developing in TUFTS, however, does not require that surgical procedure. The new piece is, initially, smaller than the tooth that replaces, and that layer of rubber nanofibers that expands is the one that fill the hole by joining the soft tissue of the jaw, not in the bone. And, little by little, he continues to reconnect with the nerves while the healing progresses, restoring communication between the mouth and the brain.

The goal is to restore nerve connections between the lost piece and the brain to feel the tooth again

Tests (keep taking care of your teeth). Everything seems promising and feeling the temperature and texture of a food again in a tooth that is not the biological sounds great, but as those responsible confirm, it is something that is in an early stage of development. That implies that it goes long and, for the moment, they have been successfully tested in rodents.

They comment that the results point to a correct biocompatibility, functioning as a normal tooth only six weeks after surgery, and are currently analyzing the brain activity of animals to evaluate the sensory information they receive from that new tooth. Next steps? Test in other animals and, subsequently, climb the clinical trials with humans.

Beyond mouth. “This new implant, and the minimally invasive technique should help reconnect the nerves, allowing the implant to ‘speak’ with the brain as a real tooth would do,” says Chen, and the big question is: if it works with teeth, Could it work with other parts of the body?

TUFTS researchers have not entered into detail, but they have commented that, if everything goes well, this technology could “Transform other types of implants bone, such as those used in hip replacements or in fracture repair ”.

Images | Ozkan Guner, Tufts University, Enis Can Ceyhan

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