Body implants that can interface with the nervous system run up against a basic material problem: wires are stiff and bodies are soft.

Researchers at the École Polytechnique Fédérale, in Lausanne, Switzerland, have designed a soft, flexible electronic implant, which they say has the same ability to bend and stretch as dura mater, the membrane that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. The story was reported in MIT Technology Review.

The scientists, including Gregoire Courtine, have previously showed that implants can allow mice with spinal injuries to walk again. But the rigid wires damaged the mice’s nervous systems.

Courtine and electrical engineer Stéphanie Lacour devised an implant they call “e-dura.” It is made from soft silicone, stretchy gold wires and rubbery electrodes flecked with platinum, as well as a microchannel through which the researchers pumped drugs.

Using the flexible implant in mice, the scientists reported in the journal Science that after two months, they saw few signs of tissue damage.

The aim of this kind of research is an implant that could restore a paralyzed person’s ability to walk. Lacour says that outcome is still far off, but believes the solution will probably involve soft electronics.

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