We have electric eels to thank for new epilepsy treatment

A team of scientists have come up with a new device, inspired by an especially slippery breed of underwater organism, that might transform the way we treat certain neurological conditions. 

Researchers at the University of Cambridge say they came up with the idea of using jelly-like materials to build ‘self-healing batteries’ after studying the muscle cells of electric eels. 

Because these materials are conducive to electricity while remaining soft and flexible, scientists say it may well be possible to implant the batteries in the human brain – potentially revolutionising the administration of drugs and treatment of epilepsy and other conditions. 

Speaking with The Independent, researcher Stephen O’Neill said: ‘It’s difficult to design a material that is both highly stretchable and highly conductive, since those two properties are normally at odds with one another.

‘Typically, conductivity decreases when a material is stretched.’

The jelly batteries, however, can be stretched by up to a factor of ten without losing any of their conductivity. 

While this perhaps has the most obvious applications in externally wearable electrical devices, the team says they’re looking into how existing subdermal implants might be improved by batteries that can be literally moulded into living human tissue. 

Oren Scherman, another researcher behind the recent breakthrough, said: ‘We can customise the mechanical properties of the hydrogels so they match human tissue

‘Since they contain no rigid components such as metal, a hydrogel implant would be much less likely to be rejected by the body or cause the build-up of scar tissue.’

Preparations are already underway to test the new batteries in living organisms, so as to establish a sense of the scope for their safe application in humans. 

The findings have been published at the same time as a comparable study at China’s Nanjing University.

There, researchers have been developing a similarly malleable lithium-ion battery that might one day be used to build in-body medical monitors to track patients vital signs.

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