ViSE collaboration impacts future of neurosurgery
Researchers at Vanderbilt University are designing robots that may one day assist neurosurgeons in treating brain clots.
The robots are part of an image-guided surgical system that would use steerable needles to penetrate the brain with minimal damage and then suction away blood clots. The robots are being developed in a collaboration between a team of engineers and physicians headed by Robert J. Webster III, a professor of mechanical engineering, and Kyle Weaver, a professor of neurological surgery.
Webster’s team has designed a steerable needle system, which he calls an active cannula. It consists of a series of thin, nested tubes, with each having a different curvature.
By precisely rotating, extending and retracting these tubes, a neurosurgeon would be able to to follow a curving path, allowing surgical procedures with minimal contact to areas of the brain unaffected by a hemorrhage.
For more information: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/08/brain-clot-robot/