3 ms·

Utah arrays overwhelmingly fail within the first year: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868924/figure/F5/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles

• mattkrause 7y ago
  If the array works at all, we've been reliably able to get /something/ for at least a year and sometimes much more, which I guess isn't too inconsistent with that. Still, a lot of our problems haven't been brain-related; instead, there's an infection or mechanical damage to the connector pedestal/wire bundle. I'm not sure that the sewing machine by itself will be able to sidestep those sorts of problems. I would be very happy to see better alternatives. I'm just not ready to switch based on this.
  • 3JPLW 7y ago
    Agreed, I've seen the same. Take that graph with a grain of salt and take a look at the failure modes table below it. Lots of monkey issues (about a quarter) and some totally unrelated things (like experiment termination). Some labs/surgeons/methods have better success than others. The big thing the sewing machine will do is (likely) reduce mechanical strain at the tissue-electrode interface and hopefully improve upon those handful of failures due to scar tissue encapsulation.
  • georgewfraser 7y ago
    I had the same experience in my time at U. Pitt: arrays that worked at all worked for a couple years. I also spent a lot of time talking to people who had implanted Utah arrays at that time, and I found that there was a ton of variability in the details of how people performed the procedure. That was almost 10 years ago, so maybe there’s some stronger best practices now.