Implant technology
50 pulses00 articles
Subscribe to Implant technology
FDA approves a heart valve that is expanded as a child grows
The FDA approved the Autus Size-Adjustable Valve on 1 October 2026, a polymer pulmonary valve implanted at 13 mm and widened to 22 mm by balloon catheter.
Newronika adaptive DBS pivotal trial implants its first patient
ADVENT will compare adaptive and conventional deep brain stimulation in 104 people with Parkinson disease, at up to 18 sites in the US and EU.
MED-EL launches a cochlear implant with nothing worn outside
TICI UNICO puts every component, the microphone included, under the skin. It carries a CE mark and went on sale in Europe on 29 September 2026.
Georgia Tech implants talk to each other through body tissue
SWANS uses the body's ionic conductivity to link injectable implants under 3 mm with wearables. In rats, a paw sensor triggered stimulation of a hind-leg muscle.
Cochlear fills two pivotal trials of a totally implantable implant
Cochlear said on 28 September 2026 that its ELEVATE and ENTERPRISE pivotal studies of a cochlear implant with no external processor have enrolled all 92 adults.
DTU builds a needle-thin implant that records, doses and stimulates
A DTU-led team reported in Advanced Science in September 2026 a flexible brain probe under half a millimetre wide that records neurons, delivers drugs and stimulates with light.
MIT's swallowable paper battery runs three days in pig stomachs
A fully bioresorbable magnesium battery delivered 1.84 V for about three days in pigs, powering an RFID tag and a gastric stimulator before dissolving.
Injected nanoparticles make blind mouse retinas respond to light
Aarhus University reports hollow carbon nitride particles that turn light into signals for surviving retinal neurons, tested in blind mice and pig retina.
Neuralink shows a trial participant speaking through his implant
A VOICE trial participant with ALS produced audible speech by thinking the words, in a synthetic reconstruction of his own voice.
A study argues for cochlear implants in younger children
A 237-child multicentre study reports outcomes supporting implantation from seven months and in children who still have residual hearing.
First US patient gets a bone-anchored, mind-controlled bionic arm
A Chicago man received the e-OPRA implant on 15 July 2026, combining a titanium anchor in the bone with implanted muscle electrodes and nerve cuffs that return a sense of touch.
Phosphoenix raises EUR 1.3M for a vision implant that bypasses the eye
The Amsterdam company will use the round to prepare a first-in-human study of a 1,000-electrode implant that stimulates the brain visual relay directly.
Paradromics' first participant speaks her own words in real time
The Michigan woman implanted with Connexus in June answered open-ended questions and called her grandchildren, moving the Connect-One study past scripted copy tasks.
A cochlear electrode that releases its own anti-inflammatory
National Taiwan University reported a porous cochlear implant electrode that elutes dexamethasone, lowering inflammation and preserving hearing thresholds in preclinical tests.
Spinal cord stimulation restored sensation in diabetic neuropathy
In a 91-patient trial across 13 US centres, 79.4 per cent on stimulation reached at least half pain relief against 4 per cent on medication, and nerve-fibre density rose 56 per cent.
Genlight raised C and D rounds for an epilepsy neurostimulator
The Hangzhou company disclosed several hundred million yuan across two rounds on 8 September 2026, for an implantable epilepsy stimulator and a spinal-cord interface.
FDA cleared the cranial plate CraniUS wants to build on
The CraniUS Plate cleared 510(k) review on 29 July 2026 as a patient-specific cranioplasty implant, and the company designates it NeuroPASS 1, the base of a brain-access platform.
Sernova and Seraxis merge to put islet cells in an implant
BetaNova Biotherapeutics pairs Sernova's implantable Cell Pouch with Seraxis' stem-cell-derived islets, with first patient dosing targeted for early 2027.
Enovis bids 155m euros for a French surgical robotics maker
A binding offer signed on 1 September 2026 would put eCential Robotics, which fuses imaging, navigation and a robotic arm for bone surgery, inside Enovis by year end.
Two patients moved from a pig kidney to a human one
eGenesis reported on 3 September 2026 that two of five recipients of its gene-edited pig kidney went on to human transplants, and three passed eight months without dialysis.
A Chinese spinal implant helps a paralysed girl take steps again
A 12-year-old Russian patient stood one month after receiving a closed-loop spinal neural interface in Hangzhou, and stepped voluntarily at three months.
Medtronic puts $700M into a surgical robot maker
The company took a roughly $700 million stake in Cornerstone Robotics and won rights to distribute its Sentire system outside the United States.
ONWARD implants its spinal stimulator in the first EIGER patient
The ARC-IM neurostimulator and lumbar lead went into the first of up to 12 participants at CHUV in Lausanne, in a study of standing and walking after spinal cord injury.
A wireless link through the dura cuts the tether on brain implants
An imec-led team reports a body-coupled telemetry architecture moving intracortical neural data at up to 500 Mbps on 2.4 mW, validated in cultures and a cadaver, not in patients.
Boston Scientific cyberattack stops new pacemakers reporting home
A 25 August intrusion left newly implanted cardiac devices unable to activate remote monitoring, and halted manufacturing and shipping of pacemakers and defibrillators.
Metal from joint replacements is reaching the brain, autopsies show
A Rush University study of 701 donated brains found implant-derived cobalt and titanium in brain tissue, with cobalt tracking higher Alzheimer's pathology but no cognitive decline.
Paradromics wins FDA clearance to route its BCI to everyday devices
Connect-One participants can now connect laptops, tablets and phones through the Convey system without a separate FDA sign-off for each new device.
FDA clears Spineart screws for robot-guided placement in the spine
A 510(k) on 26 August 2026 moves the PERLA TL system from navigation-only to robotic-assisted pedicle screw workflows on eCential Robotics Op.n.
FDA authorises the first wearable that reads ketones continuously
Abbott's Libre Duo 10 Day cleared De Novo review on 25 August 2026, measuring glucose and ketones every minute in people aged 2 and over.
A brain implant in Daejeon was driven over the internet from Chicago
KAIST and Yonsei built a sugar-cube-sized implant that delivers drugs and light on command, and ran it across 10,000 km for four weeks.
Shanxi performs its first invasive brain-computer interface implant
A man paralysed for three years received a 10-micrometre flexible cortical electrode on 19 August and now drives a computer and a pneumatic glove with it.
A snap-together electronic skin for prosthetic touch
Washington State University reports modular e-skin with ten times finer resolution than commercial glove sensors, fitted to each limb by 3D printing.
ABILITY records human neural signals over an optical link
A first-in-human intraoperative procedure at TU Munich in July 2026 tested an ECoG implant that sends data out by infrared laser instead of radio.
Paradromics implants its Connexus BCI in a first human participant
A Michigan woman with motor neuron disease received the wireless high-density implant in June 2026, opening the FDA-approved Connect-One feasibility study.
A pacemaker that runs on the heartbeat it is pacing
A triboelectric nanogenerator fitted inside a Medtronic Micra shell powered cardiac stimulation in a pig for a month, with no battery.
A 3D-printed membrane raises artificial-lung oxygen transfer by 88%
Hannover Medical School and RWTH Aachen printed a silicone gas-exchange membrane on a minimal-surface geometry instead of hollow fibres, reported in Advanced Materials on 18 August 2026.
A Wuhan hospital reports central China's first fully invasive BCI implant
Tongji Hospital placed eight ultra-flexible electrodes in the motor cortex of a woman paralysed for two years, using a device carrying NMPA innovative-device designation.
Weiling Medical raises over 100 million yuan for an implantable BCI
Junzhong Capital led the round, with a STAR Market-listed manufacturer as core industrial investor, to fund clinical verification and device registration.
Science Corp's PRIMA retinal implant goes on sale across Europe
A subretinal photovoltaic chip received a CE mark covering 30 countries after a 38-patient trial reported a mean gain of 25.5 letters.
A spinal implant reads movement, sensation and organ signals at once
A flexible array wrapped around the spinal cord of freely moving rats decoded intended movement, sensory type and autonomic traffic in a single device.
A halo of IL-10 kept implanted insulin cells working past 100 days
Rice bioengineers co-encapsulated immune-calming cells with beta cells, holding glucose control in diabetic mice about five times longer than unprotected implants.
China insures the surgery that puts a chip in the brain
A state-linked insurer wrote what is reported as China's first commercial policy covering invasive brain-computer interface implant surgery, at a Zhejiang University hospital in Hangzhou.
Twenty minutes of stimulation shifted gene activity in brain tissue
UT Southwestern and UCLA report in Nature that brief electrical stimulation of living human brain tissue strengthened neuronal assemblies and changed gene programs in neurons and glia.
The FDA clears a 15-year implant for bladder control
BlueWind Medical's Revi Extend, a tibial nerve implant for urgency urinary incontinence, cleared the FDA on 5 August 2026 with an intended service life of fifteen years.
A fully implanted cochlear implant reaches its first PMA module
Envoy Medical submitted module one of four to the FDA for the Acclaim, and reported 53.2% word recognition at 12 months in its first ten pivotal-trial participants.
Four patients receive a vagus-stimulating cochlear implant
NYU Langone has implanted four people with a cochlear implant that repurposes one electrode to stimulate the vagus nerve and speed the brain's adaptation to sound.
A six-month-old Shanghai BCI startup raises RMB330 million
Active Technology, founded in February 2026, closed a RMB330 million angel round for invasive brain-computer interfaces — a record for the stage in China.
A 320-contact retinal implant returns partial sight after 20 years
Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital implanted a 320-contact retinal visual BCI in a woman blind from retinitis pigmentosa; within two days she could tell letters apart.
Deep learning shapes cortical stimulation in a blind participant
A neural network designed the stimulation patterns for a 96-channel implant in a blind man's visual cortex, reproducing target brain activity with less current.
A stretchable transistor switches between logic and synapse with salt
A Pusan National University team built one soft device that runs digital logic at high salt concentration and behaves like a synapse at low, and shows its state by changing colour.