Overview
DARPA's Electrical Prescriptions (ElectRx) program focuses on overcoming constraints in peripheral nerve interface technologies to deliver interface systems suitable for chronic use for biosensing and neuromodulation of peripheral nerve targets.
Neural Dust Development
The neural dust technology was developed under the first phase of the ElectRx program. The research team, led by UC Berkeley's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, completed the first in vivo tests demonstrating ultrasound can be used to wirelessly power and communicate with millimeter-scale devices surgically placed in muscles and nerves.
Program Manager
Doug Weber serves as DARPA program manager for ElectRx. He noted that neural dust represents a radical departure from traditional radio wave-based wireless communication, emphasizing the advantage of ultrasound penetrating soft tissue more effectively due to sound passing freely through saltwater-based tissues while radio waves do not.