Sussex researchers make world record-breaking discovery
Sussex researchers have made a world record-breaking discovery that could revolutionise brain scanning.
The team at the University of Sussex has developed a technique to detect tiny electrical fields 100 times more effectively than current methods.
This discovery, published in Nature Physics, has the potential to significantly improve applications in healthcare, defence, underwater detection and communication, and geological prospecting.
The technique was initially developed to create more powerful quantum computers, but its potential extends far beyond this.
Medical experts suggest it could lead to huge breakthroughs in our understanding of mental illness, including in the treatment of depression and epilepsy, through improved and less intrusive brain imaging.
The researchers used a single charged atom inside a vacuum system, combined with a measurement technique they invented, to achieve this feat.
This has made the technique around 100 times more powerful than was previously possible.
However, the discovery has the potential to be one million times more powerful.
Professor Winfried Hensinger, director of the Sussex Centre for Quantum Technologies, said: "We have built a machine that makes use of single charged atoms (ions), capable of unprecedented measurement capability.
"We have managed to tame some of the very strange phenomena of quantum physics to create a device that can detect low frequency electric fields with unprecedented sensitivity.
"And we recently developed a microchip that could enhance this sensitivity even further by yet another 10,000 times.
"Using a different ion species with such a chip could enhance sensitivity indeed by a million times."
James Stone, professor of psychiatry at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, said: "It is an exciting discovery – with development it could open the way for much less intrusive and more detailed 3D imaging of electrical activity in the brain, giving the potential to detect which parts of the brain are active in real-time, and potentially giving insights into how thoughts and sensations are represented in the brain.
"It could potentially lead to huge breakthroughs in our understanding of consciousness, as well as of mental illness, and may even be useful in neurofeedback treatments for mental health conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder or depression by allowing people to visualise their brain activity and respond directly to it.
"It could also be useful in neurological conditions such as epilepsy – detecting regions of abnormal activity in deeper brain regions than would be possible with existing EEG methods."
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