Chronic electrode implant Chronic electrode implant A chronic electrode implant is an electronic device implanted chronically (for a long period) into the brain or other electrically excitable tissue. It may record electrical impulses in the brain or may stimulate neurons with electrical impulses from an external source. The potential for neural interfacing technology to restore lost sensory or motor function is staggering; victims of paralysis due to peripheral nerve injury could achieve a full recovery by directly recording the output of their motor cortex, but the technology is immature and unreliable. There are numerous examples in the literature of intra-cortical electrode recording used
Electrical brain stimulation physician Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) that nerves and muscles were electrically excitable. The stimulation of the surface of the cerebral cortex by using brain stimulation was used to investigate the motor cortex in animals by researchers such as Eduard Hitzig (1838–1907), Gustav Fritsch (1838–1927), David Ferrier (1842–1928) and Friedrich Goltz (1834–1902). The human cortex was also stimulated electrically by neurosurgeons and neurologists such as Robert Bartholow (1831–1904) and Fedor Krause (1857–1937). In the following century, the technique was improved by the invention of the stereotactic method by British neurosurgeon pioneer Victor Horsley (1857–1916), and by the development of chronic electrode implants