For a long time, stents, a thin tube placed into a hollow structure, were primarily used for keeping the passageway of a brain vessel open when blocked. Before usage, a thin guide wire is placed inside the stent. When operating, a catheter is placed into the vessel. The air is pushed into the thin guide wire once it has passed through the start and end of the blockage point, and the thin guide wire begins to resemble a balloon. This generates temporary space, and the tunnel progressively expands. The guidewire is removed from the vessel through the catheter once the flexible material of the stent has found its spot in the blockage.

The stent keeps the channel open, allowing blood to flow normally once more. In the medical world, stents are typically used in this manner. However, utilizing this approach, scientists and clinicians have discovered a means to analyze the brains of stroke or paralyzed patients. They employ the same technique for implanting stents in blood vessels, but not with the wire stents we're used to seeing. They've decided to utilize stents with neuro chips attached so that scientists can investigate the mapping of the patient's brain once they've been implanted in all of the brain's blood veins. Internal brain signals are sent to the outside world via chips, where scientists analyze the data.

Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery - The BMJ

Many stroke or paralysis patients might be able to communicate solely through their ability to think. Philip O'Keefe, a 62-year-old paralyzed man from Australia, was the first to prove this concept feasible. In 2015, O'Keefe was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that left him unable to move his upper limbs. But with the help of this newly introduced technique, he was able to tweet ‘No need for keystrokes or voices. I created this tweet just by thinking about it. #helloworldbci’ by turning his direct thought into text using the Stentrode Brain Computer Interface or BCI, created by a neurovascular bioelectronics medicine company in California, Synchron on December 23, 2021. 

Ever since, he has been using this technology to stay in contact with his family, friends, colleagues, and business projects. And as Thomas Oxley, the chief executive officer of Synchron mentioned, BCI “highlights the connection, hope, and freedom given to people like Phil who have had so much of their functional independence taken away due to debilitating paralysis.” Many anticipate neurologists will continue to challenge areas they have not been able to reach yet.   

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