To address this, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have created a new sensor that's far less invasive and much safer than the existing technology.

The team set out with one clear goal – to create a sensor that can be placed in the brain, is completely wireless and, once its job is done, dissolves away entirely. The device they built is made chiefly from silicone and polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), and is smaller than the tip of a pencil. It's able to wirelessly transmit accurate temperature and pressure data, and the researchers believe that it could be easily adapted for use in other organs around the body.

The new sensors represent a big step forward over devices commonly used today, which are unwieldy, with wires physically connecting them to monitors. The new devices' ability to dissolve inside the body removes the risks of having a foreign object in the body for an extensive period of time, such as chronic inflammation or infection.