Brain injuries are about as complex as you get in medicine. What about a simple "patch"?

1. scie nce aint so bad.co m
http://scienceaintso bad.co m/2013/12/15/radio -shack-style-fix-fo r-traumatic-brain-injury/
RADIO SHACK STYLE FIX FOR TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY?
MISTER Science Ain't So Bad
BRAINS ARE SENSIT IVE
You would be surprised how easy it is to hurt a brain. It doesn’t take much. With babies, just a little shaking.
With grownups, a single rough f ootball game or a minor motorcycle accident with the helmet still nicely attached
to the rack.
Who wears a helmet when it’s this nice, right?
T he men and women who f ight our wars f or us know about brain injuries. A handmade explosive can rip away a
soldier’s f uture permanently. Happens all the time.
Until now, the options were very limited f or brain injured patients. But researchers f rom Case Western Reserve
University/University of Kansas Medical Center have come up with something amazing.
WOW!

2. Dr. Pedram Mohseni (Case Western Reserve) developed a “brain prosthesis” . A brain prosthesis is an artif icial
thing which helps a brain work right. Dr. Mohensi’s device is a very small computer which can connect up parts
of the brain that got disconnected because of an injury. It’s a bridge f or the signals between the separated
parts. T he device uses powerf ul signal processing techniques to extract usef ul signals and then injects them
where needed to “complete the circuit”. Although this may sound simple to an electronic hobbyist, this is
several levels above “miracle” as f ar as medical science is concerned. It is amazing and startling and shocking
and wonderf ul.
I’m not exaggerating.
Except – (good guess) – it’s the damn rats again. T hey have all the luck, don’t they? T his has so f ar only been
demonstrated on lab vermin. Experiments on lab animals are very important (although sometimes morally
repugnant) but MIST ER ScienceAintSoBad tries to “keep it real” with articles about things that are closer to
the clinic or the drugstore. T his research is remarkable though. How could I deny it mention? And a cartoon of
its own.
-–-–T he drawing is mine. T he kid, hopef ully, is not.