Micro-hole Craniotomy for Micro-hole Neural Intervention: A New Paradigm to Interact with the Brain

Direct access a fine target in brain via a minimally invasive manner is ideal for a wide range of operations including neural sensing, drug delivery in brain or disease diagnosis or treatment. Advances in miniaturized neural implants and thin/soft neuro-electronics are also being witnessed. However, brain’s unique anatomical structure and the natural barrier skull make it challenging to performance minimally invasive operations. To address this issue, we proposed the method of “micro-hole brain intervention”, which is founded on the technique of Safe and Smart Micro-hole Craniotomy or S2MHC. The S2MHC technique can generate a micro-hole on the high strength skull bone (sub-millimeter diameter) without material removal, with an extremely low force that is similar to subcutaneous injection. Smart craniotomy termination detection algorithm and thermal control measures were developed for robust, safe and high-quality micro-hole craniotomy. Micro-hole craniotomy enables us to reach dura, the sub-dura space, or the brain conveniently via a micro-hole on skull for various applications from brain-computer interface, to drug delivery or disease treatment.