The surface of the brain remains an unexplored frontier in brain/neural interface design, despite the fact that it is simpler and safer to place electrodes ?onto? the brain than ?into? the brain. The research goal of this project is to build and optimize an innovative electrode array device that will improve the resolution of brain interface devices by more than 1000-fold. This goal is now considered possible due to the PI?s breakthrough success in developing electronics that can support more than 650 electrodes with a single wire. The array, which can both record brain activity and stimulate the brain, will enable research into the subtle brain signals that generate seizures in people with epilepsy and unlock new treatment options. The technology will also dramatically improve the performance of motor prosthetic devices for the paralyzed, visual prosthetic devices for the blind, and facilitate new treatments for other neurological disorders. The educational goal is to engage students and teachers in understanding brain-machine interfaces and increase interest among students in pursuing STEM undergraduate degrees and careers. In collaboration with several local high schools, a high-school written science module on neuroengineering, meeting state and national science standards, will be created. The PI will develop materials for high school biology and physics teachers to introduce the field of neuroengineering with a hands-on laboratory exercise. The PI will host an annual workshop for 20 science teachers from around the state to introduce the field of neuroengineering and to give the teachers a chance to try out the lab materials.
The project's research objective, driven by the PI's recent breakthrough development of active, flexible electronics that will enable implanted neural interfaces in which greater than 65,000 electrodes can be sampled using fewer than 100 wires, is to advance and optimize these brain interfaces by measuring fundamental neural interface design parameters. These design parameters critically influence the signal to noise ratio, total information content, and long-term reliability of electrode implants. Leveraging both computational models and experimental results related to audio responses in rats and comparisons to nonhuman primate data made available by a collaborator, three aspects critical to the performance of neural interface devices will be investigated: 1) electrode material and contact size, 2) electrode spacing, and 3) array geometry. The implant design uses the same electronics that permit a digital camera to have millions of pixels without millions of wires and will improve the resolution of brain interface devices by more than 1000-fold. The Research Plan is organized under 3 objectives: 1) Measure the effect of cortical surface contact size, material, and impedance on the properties of the recorded neural signals, including the recording of action potentials (APs); 2) Determine the surface electrode spacing required to satisfy Nyquist-Shannon spatial sampling by measuring the information content of neural signals from varying length scales and 3) Understand the biological and non-biological factors that influence the long-term reliability of surface electrode arrays by chronically implanting surface electrode arrays in freely behaving rats and evaluating long-term function and biocompatibility. The project's educational objective, to create a high-school science module, involves development and dissemination of curricular resources and a lab exercise using Arduino microcontrollers that will allow students to record and display their own electromyographic(EMG) signals and use them to control a video game.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
