Robot Sucks Blood Right Out Of Your Brain

Blood clots inside brain could be fatal. Whenever a blood vessel bursts, the blood leaks out of the vessel and then forms a clot. In medical terms, it's called intracerebral hemorrhage. Once the clot is formed inside the brain - it puts pressure on surrounding brain tissues. Though very common issue, the treatment is difficult. In almost 40% of the cases, blood clots inside brain prove fatal. However, a robot may set to change all that by aiding the doctors suck the blood out of the brain where the clot is formed. A team of research engineers at the Nashville's Vanderbilt University is working on the robot that will help save many lives.


At present, surgery is performed on the brain and a hole is drilled in the skull. Unless the clot is on the periphery, there's always a danger of damaging healthy tissues in the process. The new robot consists of a tube-within-a-tube. The outer tube is straight and is < 1/20 of an inch in diameter. It's injected in the brain and using CT scan's reference, the robot carefully pushes a very thin tube inside the brain - which sucks the blood out of the clot. The experiments performed in the laboratory indicated that up to 92% of the blood clot could be removed using the new robot.

The next challenge in front of the research team is to add ultrasound imaging techniques to the robot so that a computerised model of the clot can be formed. We've a video below that shows you the robot. Check it out!