This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop a new type of microelectrode array for basic neuroscience and, eventually, rehabilitation medicine research applications. Researchers, clinicians and bioengineers need to have finer and more specific access to individual neurons. The proposed device significantly improves both spatial and temporal specificity and provides numerous advantages over existing technology. Only simple and well-known materials (silicon) and fabrication procedures are employed. Numerous choices are available for contact and other materials, and only off-the-shelf supporting components are needed. The first devices to be constructed will be planar, but later devices could be fabricated in non-planar geometries.
The proposed device should have wide marketability within the basic neuroscience research and rehabilitation medicine research communities. On a longer time scale, this device has the potential to penetrate the much more difficult, but potentially larger medical devices market in the area of functional electric stimulation.
