Measuring the behavior of neurons next to this mesh should be able to identify exactly what occurs during neuroplasticity. What signals are sent to neighboring neurons to cause the next door neighbor to discard existing functions and take on new ones? But this will never occur because we have shit for brains in stroke leadership. Hell I could design laying down new functionality in a new area to replace dead brain functions.I'd be glad to lose toe movement to restore fingers. This BHAG(Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is doable, let me at it.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602488/injectable-wires-for-fixing-the-brain/
In a basement laboratory at Harvard University, a few
strands of thin wire mesh are undulating at the bottom of a cup of
water, as if in a minuscule ribbon dance. The meshes—about the length of
a pen cap—are able to do something unprecedented: once injected into
the brain of a living mouse, they can safely stimulate individual
neurons and measure the cells’ behavior for more than a year.
Electronic
brain interfaces like these could someday be crucial for people with
neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s. The disease causes a group of
neurons in one area of the brain to begin dying off, triggering
uncontrollable tremors and shakes. Sending targeted electrical jolts to
this area can help whip the living neurons back into shape and stop
Parkinson’s symptoms.
Today people can undergo
an electrical treatment called deep brain stimulation. But it has big
limitations. It involves implanting rigid, dense electrodes in the
brain. That’s far from ideal in such a soft organ: after about four
weeks, scar tissue begins to build up. The only way to get the
electrodes to work through this tissue is to keep upping the voltage
used to excite the neurons. That can be dangerous, and sometimes another surgery is required to replace the implant.
Pictures at link. Can be injected thru a needle
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