© 1999 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 1999

7.4.6 Outmessaging to Patient or User

In many applications, in vivo medical nanodevices may need to communicate information directly to the user or patient. This capability is crucial in providing feedback to establish stable and reliable autogenous command and control systems (Chapter 12). Outmessaging from nanorobot to the patient or user requires the nanodevice to manipulate a sensory channel that is consciously available to human perception, which manipulation can then be properly interpreted by the patient as a message.

Sensory channels available for such communication include sight, audition, gustation and olfaction, kinesthesia, and somesthetic sensory channels such as pressure, pain, and temperature. Nanodevice-originated data may be superimposed upon the natural sensory traffic by:

1. generating an artificial sensory stimulus,

2. direct stimulation of the receptor in the absence of actual sensory stimulus, or

3. triggering artificial action potentials in the afferent nerves that carry information from the sensor to the CNS.

Last updated on 19 February 2003