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Q-NEURO: Diamond Quantum Technology for the Investigation of Neurological disease

Q-NEURO：用于神经系统疾病研究的钻石量子技术

基本信息

批准号：
EP/R034699/1
负责人：
Richard Jackman
金额：
$ 28.79万
依托单位：
University College London
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2018
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2018 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FR034699%2F1
关键词：
NEURO Diamond Quantum Technology Investigation

项目摘要

Understanding the function of the brain is one of the most significant challenges of the 21st century. Vast numbers of the human population face the prospect of neurodegenerative disease (such as Alzheimer's); numbers that will only get higher with ever-increasing lifespan, in-part due to success in other branches of medicine and improvements in healthy living conditions. Neurogenerative disease is devastating for both the patient, and his/her family and friends, who progressively 'lose' the one they care about. Moreover, societal and economic costs associated with the care regime needed for such patients are significant. The challenge is two-fold by nature of the immense complexity of the brain, contrasted with the minute underlying electromagnetic fields that interconnect individual cells. Unfortunately, there is a lack of methods to detect signalling processes with the desired sensitivity and sufficient spatial resolution, making the challenge of understanding the brain's complexity near insurmountable. Current state-of-the-art techniques monitor fluorescence changes of voltage dependent indicators or use electrical probes to measure voltages across cell membranes. At large scales, SQUID magnetometers are used for magnetoencephalography (MEG), but are insensitive to single nerve impulses and come at great financial cost. Each method has limitations in one or more of the following categories: signal to noise ratio, temporal resolution and spatial resolution. Hence there is a major need of revolutionary methods to overcome these barriers. Q-NEURO aims to fill a major, outstanding need in neuroscience research in such a revolutionary manor.Q-NEURO will develop a novel imaging method to enable the detection of individual signalling events in neuroscience. The biosensor is based on quantum engineered diamond with properties that make it an unrivalled sensor for biology. Fluorescence microscopy will be used to readout an array of spins in diamond, which in turn will detect the magnetic fields produced during neural signalling. The spins are associated with the nitrogen-vacancy defect centre in diamond, a quantum coherent spin system allowing for ultrasensitive magnetic detection under ambient conditions.The quantum-bio sensor developed by Q-NEURO will enable: (i) imaging of individual action potentials from neurons with high spatial resolution down to the nanoscale, (ii) real-time detection of action potentials with sub-millisecond temporal resolution, (iii) wide field-of-view monitoring of neuronal signalling events in two dimensional networks.

了解大脑的功能是21世纪世纪最重要的挑战之一。大量人口面临神经退行性疾病（如阿尔茨海默氏症）的前景;随着寿命的不断延长，部分原因是其他医学分支的成功和健康生活条件的改善，这些数字只会越来越高。神经退行性疾病对患者及其家人和朋友来说都是毁灭性的，他们逐渐“失去”他们关心的人。此外，与这些患者所需的护理制度相关的社会和经济成本是显著的。大脑的巨大复杂性与连接单个细胞的微小潜在电磁场形成了鲜明对比，这一挑战是双重的。不幸的是，目前缺乏方法来检测具有所需灵敏度和足够空间分辨率的信号过程，这使得理解大脑复杂性的挑战几乎无法克服。当前最先进的技术监测电压依赖性指示剂的荧光变化或使用电探针来测量跨细胞膜的电压。在大尺度上，SQUID磁力计用于脑磁图（MEG），但对单一神经冲动不敏感，而且成本很高。每种方法在以下类别中的一个或多个方面都有局限性：信噪比、时间分辨率和空间分辨率。因此，迫切需要革命性的方法来克服这些障碍。Q-NEURO旨在以这样一种革命性的方式满足神经科学研究中一个主要的、突出的需求。Q-NEURO将开发一种新的成像方法，以检测神经科学中的个体信号事件。该生物传感器基于量子工程金刚石，其特性使其成为生物学上无与伦比的传感器。荧光显微镜将用于读出钻石中的自旋阵列，这反过来将检测神经信号传递过程中产生的磁场。这些自旋与金刚石中的氮空位缺陷中心有关，金刚石是一种量子相干自旋系统，允许在环境条件下进行超灵敏的磁检测。Q-NEURO开发的量子生物传感器将实现：（i）以低至纳米级的高空间分辨率对来自神经元的个体动作电位进行成像，（ii）以亚毫秒时间分辨率实时检测动作电位，（iii）二维网络中神经元信号事件的宽视场监测。