Recent research published in the journal Microsystems & Nanoengineering could eventually change the way people living with prostheses and spinal cord injury lead their lives. Instead of using neural prosthetic devices-which can cause immune-system rejection and are believed to fail due to a material and mechanical mismatch-a multi-institutional team, including Lohitash Karumbaiah, PhD, of the University of Georgia’s (UGA’s) Regenerative Bioscience Center, has developed a brain-friendly extracellular matrix environment of neuronal cells that contain very little foreign material. These “by-design electrodes” are shielded by a covering that the brain recognizes as part of its own composition.
“This is not, by any means, the device that you’re going to implant into a patient,” said Karumbaiah, an assistant professor of animal and dairy science in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “This is proof of concept that extracellular matrix can be used to ensheathe a functioning electrode without the use of any other foreign or synthetic materials.”
The collaboration, led by associate professor of mathematics Wen Shen, PhD, and Mark Allen, PhD, the Alfred Fitler Moore professor of electrical and systems engineering, both with the University of Pennsylvania, found that the extracellular matrix-derived electrodes adapted to the mechanical properties of brain tissue and were capable of acquiring neural recordings from the brain cortex. Ravi Bellamkonda, PhD, conceived the new approach. He is chair of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University.
“Hopefully, once we converge upon the nanofabrication techniques that would enable these to be clinically translational, this same methodology could then be applied in getting these extracellular matrix-derived electrodes to be the next wave of brain implants,” said Karumbaiah.
“What neural prosthetic devices do is communicate seamlessly to an external prosthesis…,” said Karumbaiah. “Neural interface technology is literally mind-boggling, considering that one might someday control a prosthetic limb with one’s own thoughts.”
Karumbaiah said he hopes further collaboration will allow the team to make positive changes in the industry. “It’s the researcher-to-industry kind of conversation that now needs to take place, where companies need to come in and ask, ‘What have you learned? How are the devices deficient, and how can we make them better?'”
