Autonomous control for mechanically stable navigation of microscale implants in brain tissue to record neural activity.

Emerging neural prosthetics require precise positional tuning and stable interfaces with single neurons for optimal function over a lifetime. In this study, we report an autonomous control to precisely navigate microscale electrodes in soft, viscoelastic brain tissue without visual feedback. The aut...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Biomedical Microdevices Vol. 18; no. 4; pp. 1 - 43
Autores principales: Anand, Sindhu, Kumar, Swathy Sampath, Muthuswamy, Jit
Formato: Journal Article
Publicado: Springer Nature Aug2016
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Emerging neural prosthetics require precise positional tuning and stable interfaces with single neurons for optimal function over a lifetime. In this study, we report an autonomous control to precisely navigate microscale electrodes in soft, viscoelastic brain tissue without visual feedback. The autonomous control optimizes signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of single neuronal recordings in viscoelastic brain tissue while maintaining quasi-static mechanical stress conditions to improve stability of the implant-tissue interface. Force-displacement curves from microelectrodes in in vivo rodent experiments are used to estimate viscoelastic parameters of the brain. Using a combination of computational models and experiments, we determined an optimal movement for the microelectrodes with bidirectional displacements of 3:2 ratio between forward and backward displacements and a inter-movement interval of 40 sec for minimizing mechanical stress in the surrounding brain tissue. A regulator with the above optimal bidirectional motion for the microelectrodes in in vivo experiments resulted in significant reduction in the number of microelectrode movements (0.23 movements/min) and longer periods of stable SNR (53% of the time) compared to a regulator using a conventional linear, unidirectional microelectrode movement (with 1.48 movements/min and stable SNR 23% of the time).