CAREER: Intellectual Infrastructure and Critical Enabling Technology Development for Advanced Neural Engineering Applications

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0348145RouscheThe field of neural engineering is standing at the brink of another technological revolution in health care. Single microelectrodes implanted into the brain of severely compromised neurological patients have been used to create a direct link between human nerve cells and computers in the external world, providing a means for a brainstem stroke patient to crudely communicate with health care attendants and family. Conversely, implanted microelectrodes may also be used to transfer information from the external world directly into the brain, thus benefiting patients with disorders such as deafness or blindness. Targeted multichannel electrical stimulation of visual or auditory centers of the brain could induce usable sensory perceptions. The overall goal of the proposed investigation is to simultaneously nurture the country's intellectual neural engineering infrastructure while developing the critical enabling technologies that will result in the design, testing, and eventual routine clinical implementation of cortical neuroprosthetic implant systems to assist people with a variety of neurological dysfunctions. The plan has 5 major objectives: 1) to engineer a novel three-dimensional neural interface architecture utilizing a mechanically-flexible, neurocompatible substrate with multiple electrode sites; 2) to apply and quantify neurotrophic tissue engineering techniques towards improvements in performance and longevity of implanted electrodes; 3) to quantify spatiotemporal dynamics of receptive field reorganization (plasticity) in cortex; 4) to introduce concepts of neural engineering to traditionally under-represented Chicago high-school students via a Bioengineering summer camp followed by after-school internships and 5) to introduce Bioengineering students to clinical neural engineering via for-credit .shadowing. programs in clinical neurology, audiology, ophthalmology and neurosurgery.The successful completion of these objectives will result in the demonstration of high-channel count, batch-fabricated, implantable neurotrophic electrode systems essential for advanced neural interfaces for clinical and basic neuroscience use and will expand the boundaries of in vitro and in vivo (rat model) neural applications. The proposal brings a multi-disciplinary and systems approach to solving critical problems in neural engineering and brain interfacing.