Sensory Neural Prostheses

The use of technology to compensate for neurological deficit or disease has long captured the imagination of researchers in neural engineering. Although the field of neural engineering, by name, is relatively young, over the past 30 years many researchers from the traditional engineering fields have devoted major portions of their careers to the development of implantable devices known as neural prostheses. These efforts are exemplary of the multidisciplinary nature of bioengineering, and have incorporated principles from a broad range of engineering fields, including electrical, mechanical, and materials engineering, as well as advanced theoretical and applied research in polymer science, electrochemistry, and neuroscience. The basic principle underlying all neural prosthetic devices is common: the artificial manipulation of the biological neural system using externally induced electrical currents with the goal of mimicking normal sensorimotor functions. However, each application requires implantable hardware systems that are specific to the desired function, and therein lay the engineering challenges.