For epileptics who suffer from a particularly severe form of the disease, brain surgery is usually one of the last treatment options. That’s because it’s an extremely risky surgery, with a long recovery time that requires sawing through the skull.
No longer.
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Scientists at Vanderbilt University in Nashville have developed a robot system that allows this risky neurosurgical intervention to be made through a tiny hole in the cheek.
The operation unit is a 1.14 mm-thick titanium needle that uses concentric tubes to inch its way into the brain without hurting surrounding tissue. Another advantage of the technique is that the material itself can withstand strong magnetic fields and thus can be used in MRI machines, allowing surgeons to control it while a patient is in an MRI.
Robot platform. Image: Laboratory for the Design and Control of Energetic Systems/Vanderbilt
The needle can be guided by compressed air and with an accuracy of 1.18 mm. Tiny movements and simultaneous brain scans by magnetic resonance imaging allow the surgeon to constantly monitor the position of the needle.
“I’ve done a lot of work in my career on the control of pneumatic systems,” Eric Barth, one of the researchers who designed the system, said in a statement. “We knew we had this ability to have a robot in the MRI scanner, doing something in a way that other robots could not. Then we thought, ‘What can we do that would have the highest impact?’”
Interior view of the robot. Image: Laboratory for the Design and Control of Energetic Systems/Vanderbilt
Conveniently, his colleague Robert Webster had accidentally developed some controllable surgical needles at the same time, so working together came naturally.
So far, the robot surgeon has only been tested as a prototype under laboratory conditions; the next stage of trials will soon be performed on dead people.
The professors say they want to make the system even cheaper and more efficient by 3D printing many of the parts needed. The robot is designed for use in epileptic patients, but it should, in theory, be useful for surgeries on other lower brain regions such as the hippocampus.
