With the $2.5 million grant received from the National Institutes of Health, University of Florida researchers from the College of Medicine, the College of Engineering and the McKnight Brain Institute have teamed up to create a "neuroprosthetic" chip designed to be implanted in the brain.

Imagine a chip, strategically placed in the brain, that could prevent epileptic seizures or allow someone who has lost a limb to control an artificial arm just by thinking about it.

It may sound like science fiction, but University of Florida researchers are developing devices that can interpret signals in the brain and stimulate neurons to perform correctly, advances that might someday make it possible for a tiny computer to fix diseases or even allow a paralyzed person to control a prosthetic device with his thoughts.

Currently being investigated on rats but the goal would be to develop a prototype of the device within the next four years that could be tested in people and correct conditions such as paralysis or epilepsy.

According to Justin Sanchez, Ph.D., director of the UF Neuroprosthetics Research Group and an assistant professor of pediatric neurology, neuroscience and biomedical engineering:

"We really feel like if we can do this, we'll have the technology to offer new options for patients.

There's kind of a revolution going on right now in the neurosciences and biomedical engineering. People are trying to take engineering approaches for directly interfacing with the brain.

The hope is we can cure more immediately a variety of diseases."

Find more details in the full report.