Autonomous and Surgery-free Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)
What if clinicians could place tiny electronic chips inside the brain without the need for any surgery but with a simple injection in the arm?
This could help to treat deadly and devastating brain diseases which drugs/chemicals cannot fix and eliminate surgery risks as well as 100,000 dollars of surgery costs.
Our research shows that this is possible.
We have developed tiny nanoelectronic devices, billion times smaller than a grain of rice, with high wireless power conversion efficiency, that can travel through the blood stream, autonomously recognize target diseased regions, cross blood-brain-barrier and self-implant, defying the need for any surgery.
This seamless brain computer interface (BCI) technology provides precise electrical brain stimulation for treating intractable brain diseases where even drugs are ineffective. Moreover, the VLSI compatibility of these devices makes it promising for enabling additional functionalities including sensing, feedback based on-chip data analysis, data telemetry and capabilities such as creating synthetic electronic neurons.
While current brain implants are only limited to less than 1% of patients, by eliminating the need for surgery and thus the associated risks and costs, our technology can make life saving treatments accessible to all!
For this work, the National Institute of Health has awarded a perfect and rarely achieved impact score and the NIH Director's New Innovator Award. We achieved an impact score of “10”—the highest score possible.
Relevant Publications & News
S. Yadav, R. X. Lee, S. N. Kajale, B. C. Joy, M. Saha, P. Patel, L. Bull, S. Cao, S. Mitragotri, D. C. Bono and D. Sarkar, "A nonsurgical brain implant enabled through a cell–electronics hybrid for focal neuromodulation" Nature Biotechnology (2025)
"How Our Own Cells Could Implant The Next Generation Of Nonsurgical Brain Microchips", Forbes, December 2025
"Circulatronics: autonomous, surgery-free brain-computer interfaces", BBC Documentary, 2025
"Deblina, Is Now At Centre Of Breakthrough That Could Reinvent Treatment For Brain Diseases", CNN, December 2025
"Microscopic Tech at Forefront of Treating Women's Health Issues", Bloomberg, October 2025
"Stranger than science fiction: surgery free brain implants ", Museum of Science, November 2025
"New therapeutic brain implants could defy the need for surgery", MIT News, November 2025