University of Houston researchers have developed a concept for MRI-powered millimeter-size “millirobots” that could one day perform unprecedented minimally invasive medical treatments.

This technology could be used to treat hydrocephalus, for example. Current treatments require drilling through the skull to implant pressure-relieving shunts, said Aaron T. Becker, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston.

But MRI scanners alone don’t produce enough force to pierce tissues (or insert needles). So the researchers drew upon the principle of the “Gauss gun.”

Here’s how the a Gauss gun works: a single steel ball rolls down a chamber, setting off a chain reaction when it smashes into the next ball, etc., until the last ball flies forward, moving much more quickly the initial ball.

Based on that concept, the researchers imagine a medical robot with a barrel self-assembled from three small high-impact 3D-printed plastic components, with slender titanium rod spacers separating two steel balls.

Aaron T. Becker, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston, said the potential technology could be used to treat hydrocephalus and other conditions, allowing surgeons to avoid current treatments that require cutting through the skull to implant pressure-relieving shunts.

Becker was first author of a paper presented at ICRA, the conference of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, nominated for best conference paper and best medical robotics paper.

“Hydrocephalus, among other conditions, is a candidate for correction by our millirobots because the ventricles are fluid-filled and connect to the spinal canal,” Becker said. “Our noninvasive approach would eventually require simply a hypodermic needle or lumbar puncture to introduce the components into the spinal canal, and the components could be steered out of the body afterwards.”

Future work will focus on exploring clinical context, miniaturizing the device, and optimizing material selection.

Abstract of Toward Tissue Penetration by MRI-powered Millirobots Using a Self-Assembled Gauss Gun

MRI-based navigation and propulsion of millirobots is a new and promising approach for minimally invasive therapies. The strong central field inside the scanner, however, precludes torque-based control. Consequently, prior propulsion techniques have been limited to gradient-based pulling through fluid-filled body lumens. This paper introduces a technique for generating large impulsive forces that can be used to penetrate tissue. The approach is based on navigating multiple robots to a desired location and using self-assembly to trigger the conversion of magnetic potential energy into sufficient kinetic energy to achieve penetration. The approach is illustrated through analytical modeling and experiments in a clinical MRI scanner.

Psychedelic drugs such as LSD are much less harmful than claimed and should be legally reclassified to allow further research on their medical use, says James Rucker, a psychiatrist and honorary lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London.

These substances “were extensively used and researched in clinical psychiatry” before their prohibition in 1967 and many trials of these drugs in the 1950s and 1960s suggested “beneficial change in many psychiatric disorders.”

Nonetheless, in the UK, psychedelic drugs were legally classified as schedule 1 class A drugs; that is, as having “no accepted medical use and the greatest potential for harm, despite the research evidence to the contrary,” he writes.

Clinical efficacy shown in anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, addiction, and headaches

Rucker makes these points:

• Psychedelics remain more legally restricted than heroin and cocaine. “But no evidence indicates that psychedelic drugs are habit forming; little evidence indicates that they are harmful in controlled settings; and much historical evidence shows that they could have use in common psychiatric disorders.” In fact, recent studies indicate that psychedelics have “clinical efficacy in anxiety associated with advanced cancer, obsessive compulsive disorder, tobacco and alcohol addiction, and cluster headaches,” he writes.
• At present, larger clinical studies on psychedelics are made “almost impossible by the practical, financial and bureaucratic obstacles” imposed by their schedule 1 classification. Currently, only one manufacturer in the world produces psilocybin for trial purposes, he says, at a “prohibitive” cost of £100,000 for 1 g (50 doses).
• In the UK, to hold a schedule 1 drug, institutions require a license, which costs about £5,000, he adds. Only four hospitals currently hold such licenses, which come with regular police or home office inspections and onerous rules on storage and transport, so “clinical research using psychedelics costs 5–10 times that of research into less restricted (but more harmful) drugs such as heroin.” As a result, “almost all grant funders are uncomfortable funding research into psychedelics,” while prohibition as a condition of UN membership is “arguably causing more harm than it prevents.”
• Psychedelics are neither harmful nor addictive compared with other controlled substances. He calls on the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs, “to recommend that psychedelics be reclassified as schedule 2 compounds to enable a comprehensive, evidence based assessment of their therapeutic potential.”

A tiny (one-centimeter-square) biosensor chip developed at EPFL is designed to be implanted under your skin to continuously monitor concentrations of pH, temperature, and metabolism-related molecules like glucose, lactate and cholesterol, as well as some drugs.

The chip would replace blood work, which may take  hours — or even days — for analysis and is a limited snapshot of conditions at the moment the blood is drawn.

Developer Sandro Carrara unveiled the chip Tuesday (May 26) at the International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) in Lisbon.

The electrochemical sensors work with or without enzymes, which means the device can react to a wide range of compounds, and it can do so for several days or even weeks.

Wireless power and monitoring

The biochip contains three main components: a circuit with six sensors, a control unit that analyzes incoming signals, and a Bluetooth module for sending the results immediately to a mobile phone. It also has an induction coil that wirelessly draws power from an external battery attached to the skin by a patch.

To ensure biocompatibility, an epoxy-enhanced polyurethane membrane was used to cover the device.

The chip was successfully tested in vivo on mice at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Bellinzona, where researchers were able to constantly monitor glucose and paracetamol levels without a wire tracker getting in the way of the animals’ daily activities.

The results were promising, so clinical tests on humans could take place in three to five years — especially since the procedure is minimally invasive, the researchers say.

“Knowing the precise and real-time effect of drugs on the metabolism is one of the keys to the type of personalised, precision medicine that we are striving for,” said Carrara.

What if your handheld tools knew what needs to be done and were even able to guide and help you complete jobs that require skills? University of Bristol researchers are finding out by building and testing intelligent handheld robots.

Think of them as smart power tools that “know” what they’re doing — and could even help you use them.

The robot tools would have three levels of autonomy, said Walterio Mayol-Cuevas, Reader in Robotics Computer Vision and Mobile Systems: “No autonomy, semi-autonomous — the robot advises the user but does not act, and fully autonomous — the robot advises and acts even by correcting or refusing to perform incorrect user actions.”

The Bristol team has experimented with tasks such as picking and dropping different objects to form tile patterns and aiming in 3D for simulated painting.

The robot designs are open source and available on the university’s HandheldRobotics page.

Disney researchers have found a way for a robot to mimic an animated character’s walk, bringing a cartoon (or other) character to life in the real world.

Beginning with an animation of a diminutive, peanut-shaped character that walks with a rolling, somewhat bow-legged gait, Katsu Yamane and his team at Disney Research Pittsburgh analyzed the character’s motion to design a robotic frame that could duplicate the walking motion. using 3D-printed links and servo motors, while also fitting inside the character’s skin. They then created control software that could keep the robot balanced while duplicating the character’s gait as closely as possible.

“The biggest challenge is that designers don’t necessarily consider physics when they create an animated character,” said Yamane, senior research scientist. Roboticists, however, wrestle with physical constraints throughout the process of creating a real-life version of the character.

“It’s important that, despite physical limitations, we do not sacrifice style or the quality of motion,” Yamane said. The robots will need to not only look like the characters, but move in the way people are accustomed to seeing those characters move.

The researchers are describing the techniques and technologies they used to create the bipedal robot at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2015, May 26–30 in Seattle.