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Over the past decade, stereotactically placed electrodes have become the gold standard for deep brain recording and stimulation for a wide variety of neurological and psychiatric diseases. Current electrodes, however, are limited in their spatial resolution and ability to record from small populations of neurons, let alone individual neurons. Here, we report on an innovative, customizable, monolithically integrated human-grade flexible depth electrode capable of recording from up to 128 channels and able to record at a depth of 10 cm in brain tissue. This thin, stylet-guided depth electrode is capable of recording local field potentials and single unit neuronal activity (action potentials), validated across species. This device represents an advance in manufacturing and design approaches which extends the capabilities of a mainstay technology in clinical neurology.

 

Electrophysiological stimulation has been widely adopted for clinical diagnostic and therapeutic treatments for modulation of neuronal activity. Safety is a primary concern in an interventional design leveraging the effects of electrical charge injection into tissue in the proximity of target neurons. While modalities of tissue damage during stimulation have been extensively investigated for specific electrode geometries and stimulation paradigms, a comprehensive model that can predict the electrochemical safety limits in vivo doesn’t yet exist. Here we develop a model that accounts for the electrode geometry, inter-electrode separation, material, and stimulation paradigm in predicting safe current injection limits. We performed a parametric investigation of the stimulation limits in both benchtop and in vivo setups for flexible microelectrode arrays with low impedance, high geometric surface area platinum nanorods and PEDOT:PSS, and higher impedance, planar platinum contacts. We benchmark our findings against standard clinical electrocorticography and depth electrodes. Using four, three and two contact electrochemical impedance measurements and comprehensive circuit models derived from these measurements, we developed a more accurate, clinically relevant and predictive model for the electrochemical interface potential. For each electrode configuration, we experimentally determined the geometric correction factors that dictate geometry-enforced current spreading effects. We also determined the electrolysis window from cyclic-voltammetry measurements which allowed us to calculate stimulation current safety limits from voltage transient measurements. From parametric benchtop electrochemical measurements and analyses for different electrode types, we created a predictive equation for the cathodal excitation measured at the electrode interface as a function of the electrode dimensions, geometric factor, material and stimulation paradigm. We validated the accuracy of our equation in vivo and compared the experimentally determined safety limits to clinically used stimulation protocols. Our new model overcomes the design limitations of Shannon’s equation and applies to macro- and micro-electrodes at different density or separation of contacts, captures the breakdown of charge-density based approaches at long stimulation pulse widths, and invokes appropriate power exponents to current, pulse width, and material/electrode-dependent impedance. 

A roadmap of the spine During spinal cord surgery, intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM) is used to reduce the risk of damage. Electrodes on muscles or scalp record the response to large-amplitude electrical stimuli delivered to the spinal cord. However, this method does not allow precise spatiotemporal characterization of spinal cord neurophysiology. Now, Russman et al. developed a microelectrode array that can be placed on the spinal cord during surgery and record with high spatiotemporal definition and high sensitivity the electrophysiological response to low-current stimulation, providing precise maps of spinal cord electrophysiology. These maps can be used during surgery to improve IONM. 

Piezoelectric devices transduce mechanical energy to electrical energy by elastic deformation, which distorts local dipoles in crystalline materials. Amongst electromechanical sensors, piezoelectric devices are advantageous because of their scalability, light weight, low power consumption, and readily built-in amplification and ability for multiplexing, which are essential for wearables, medical devices, and robotics. This paper reviews recent progress in active piezoelectric devices. We classify these piezoelectric devices according to the material dimensionality and present physics-based device models to describe and quantify the piezoelectric response for one-dimensional nanowires, emerging two-dimensional materials, and three-dimensional thin films. Different transduction mechanisms and state-of-the-art devices for each type of material are reviewed. Perspectives on the future applications of active piezoelectric devices are discussed. 

Cortex in high resolution Recording brain cortical activity with high spatial and temporal resolution is critical for understanding brain circuitry in physiological and pathological conditions. In this study, Tchoe et al. developed a reconfigurable and scalable thin-film, multithousand-channel neurophysiological recording grids using platinum nanorods, called PtNRGrids, that could record thousands of channels with submillimeter resolution in the rat barrel cortex. In human subjects, PtNRGrids were able to provide high-resolution recordings of large and curvilinear brain areas and to resolve spatiotemporal dynamics of motor and sensory activities. The results suggest that PtNRGrids could be used in the preclinical and clinical setting for high spatial and temporal recording of neural activity. 

Highly sensitive force sensors of piezoelectric zinc oxide (ZnO) dual‐gate thin film transistors (TFTs) are reported together with an analytical model that elucidates the physical origins of their response. The dual‐gate TFTs are fabricated on a polyimide substrate and exhibited a field effect mobility of ≈5 cm²V⁻¹s⁻¹,I_max/I_minratio of 10⁷, and a subthreshold slope of 700 mV dec⁻¹, and demonstrated static and transient current changes under external forces with varying amplitude and polarity in different gate bias regimes. To understand the current modulation of the dual‐gate TFT with independently biased top and bottom gates, an analytical model is developed. The model includes accumulation channels at both surfaces and a bulk channel within the film and accounts for the force‐induced piezoelectric charge density. The microscopic piezoelectric response that modulates the energy‐band edges and correspondent current–voltage characteristics are accurately portrayed by this model. Finally, the field‐tunable force response in single TFT is demonstrated as a function of independent bias for the top and bottom gates with a force response range from −0.29 to 22.7 nA mN⁻¹. This work utilizes intuitive analytical models to shed light on the correlation between the material properties with the force response in piezoelectric TFTs.