It may sound like an object ripped straight from a sci fi horror movie but researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created just that.
A threadlike robot worm made from a pliable nickel-titanium alloy core that can be “magnetically steered to deftly navigate the extremely narrow and winding arterial pathways of the human brain”.
The vision of the project is for it to be used as a quick tool to clear blockages and clots that contribute to strokes and aneurysm.
A highly delicate and complicated creation, roots from the need to answer the alarming rise of stroke cases in America.
Skilled surgeons are required to manually guide the “worm wire” through a patient’s arteries up into a damaged brain vessel followed by a catheter that can deliver treatments or simply retrieve a clot. A process more complicated than what is written in this article and has a lot of room for improvement.
The worm bot would be using the processes of water-based biocompatible hydrogels, and the use of magnets to manipulate simple machines. These processes can reportedly speed up the time in which to cure patients suffering from stroke.