NANeurO · Injectable nanoelectrodes for wireless and minimally invasive neural stimulation

Neural devices used in the brain and spinal cord have yielded medical breakthroughs to improve the lives of people with spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, and hearing loss. However, current neural devices are large, complex, and invasive, and are therefore used by only a fraction of people who could benefit from them. Instead, I want to make neural devices that are nanoscale, injectable, and wireless. By lowering invasiveness and implantation risk, this technology could address the unmet medical needs of more people with neurological impairments. The work proposed herein is to develop a minimally invasive nanoelectrode system capable of wireless, spatially selective, and multiplexed neural stimulation. I have previously developed nanoelectrodes that directly stimulated (i.e. with no genetic/biochemical neuron modification) the deep brain of mice as a proof-of-concept. This was possible because, unlike other wireless neural technologies, device powering was nonresonant, and thus independent of size. In my proposed research I will now develop optimized nanoelectrodes, and I will approach this by developing a toolbox of nanomaterials to study and learn from. In particular, I will look at how nanoelectrode size and shape affects signal/response and neurostimulation. This approach will generate new, enabling technologies, such as the ability to individually stimulate some particles while ignoring others, for multiplexed stimulation control. While the field of nanoscale and wireless neuroelectrodes is exceptionally small, new, and high risk, the proposed work could one day enable minimally invasive, wireless neural modulation.