Amazing stuff! Good news!
"... The breakthrough ... demonstrates that microelectronic systems can function at an unprecedentedly small scale, opening new possibilities for neural monitoring, bio-integrated sensing and other applications. ...
Development of the device, called a microscale optoelectronic tetherless electrode, or MOTE ...
Powered by red and infrared laser beams that pass harmlessly through brain tissue, the MOTE transmits data back using tiny pulses of infrared light, which encode the brain’s electrical signals.
A semiconductor diode made of aluminum gallium arsenide captures light energy to power the circuit and emits light to communicate the data. Supporting this is a low-noise amplifier and optical encoder built using the same semiconductor technology in everyday microchips.
The MOTE is about 300 microns long and 70 microns wide. ...
the smallest neural implant that will measure electrical activity in the brain and then report it out wirelessly ...
The researchers tested the MOTE first in cell cultures and then implanted it into mice’s barrel cortex, the brain region that processes sensory information from whiskers. Over the course of a year, the implant successfully recorded spikes of electrical activity from neurons as well as broader patterns of synaptic activity – all while the mice remained healthy and active. ..."
From the abstract:
"The long-term recording of neural activity could be used to understand complex behaviours and disorders. However, the development of technology capable of such measurements faces a variety of technical challenges, including the relative motion between recording electrodes and tissue and the excessive displaced volume from implanted electronics.
Here we report a subnanolitre-volume tetherless optoelectronic microsystem for neural recording.
The system relies on light for photovoltaic power and data transfer, through a light-emitting diode, eliminating the need for wires or other tethers.
It uses a single AlGaAs diode as both photovoltaic and light-emitting diode.
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor circuits provide low-noise amplification, pulse-position-modulated encoding and electro-optical transduction.
Two-dimensional materials processing techniques, vacuum annealing and atomic layer deposition, in conjunction with a standard complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor fabrication process, provide compact encapsulation against the corrosive conditions of biological media.
We show that the subnanolitre neural implant is capable of chronic (365 days) in vivo recordings in awake mice."
A subnanolitre tetherless optoelectronic microsystem for chronic neural recording in awake mice (open access)
Fig. 1: Autonomous microsystems and MOTE.
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