Bidirectional Hybrid Electrical-Acoustic Minimally Invasive Implants for Large-Scale Neural Recording and Modulation

项目摘要： 通过大规模监测和调节大脑活动来动态绘制复杂的大脑回路， 增强我们对大脑功能的理解，如感觉，思想，情感和行动。这 知识最终将有助于更好地治疗和预防神经系统疾病。实时连接 大脑还具有增强我们的感知、运动和认知能力的潜力， 由于受伤或疾病而丧失的感觉和运动功能。尽管经过几十年的研究和开发 不幸的是，对大脑活动的监测和调节， 大尺度的时空分辨率仍然是21世纪的重大挑战之一。 目前，神经调节可以通过药物和化学的不同方式来实现。 方法，缺乏特异性，以电气，电磁，光学和声学方法具有更高的 的特异性类似地，可以用不同的间接（通过成像血流动力学）监测神经活动。 改变）或直接（电生理记录）方法，具有各种时空分辨率和空间分辨率。 覆盖不幸的是，用于大脑接口的可用的非侵入性工具遭受较差的时空特性。 分辨率植入式方法具有极高的侵入性，需要穿透器械（例如电极、光学元件） 纤维）进入脑实质，形成瘢痕组织、长期损伤和生物反应， 随着时间的推移会导致植入失败。更重要的是，目前的植入方法只能应用于 人类大脑约850亿个神经元中的数百个神经元。 我们提出了一个新的范例，为大规模的神经接口，通过开发一个新的双向神经- 接口平台，其中分布有微创混合电声植入物网络 在大脑表面。这些植入物将1）小（毫米级），轻，自由浮动，可寻址， 无线，2）同时提供高密度电生理记录（µECOG）和超声 具有几微米和毫秒高时空分辨率的刺激，3）刺激不同的 通过由薄膜阵列聚焦超声波束， 超声换能器（不穿透脑实质），以及4）声学引导µECOG 通过对植入物下的神经结构进行成像来记录和超声刺激。

Project Summary: Dynamic mapping of complex brain circuits by monitoring and modulating brain activity at large scale will enhance our understanding of brain functions, such as sensation, thought, emotion, and action. This knowledge will ultimately help to better treat and prevent neurological disorders. Real-time interfacing with the brain also has the potential to enhance our perceptual, motor, and cognitive capabilities, as well as to restore sensory and motor functions lost through injuries or diseases. Despite decades of research and development of neurotechnologies for the brain, unfortunately monitoring and modulation of brain activity with high spatiotemporal resolution at large scale is still one of the grand challenges in the 21st century. Currently, neuromodulation can be achieved with different modalities from pharmacological and chemical methods, which lack specificity, to electrical, electromagnetic, optical, and acoustic methods with higher specificity. Similarly, neural activity can be monitored with different indirect (through imaging hemodynamic changes) or direct (electrophysiology recording) methods with various spatiotemporal resolution and spatial coverage. Unfortunately, available non-invasive tools for brain interfacing suffer from poor spatiotemporal resolution. Implantable methods are extremely invasive, requiring penetration of devices (e.g. electrodes, optic fibers) into the brain parenchyma with scar tissue formation, long-term damage, and biological responses that can result in implantation failure over time. More importantly, current implantable methods can only be applied to hundreds of neurons out of ~85 billion neurons in the human brain. We propose a new paradigm for large-scale neural interfacing by developing a new bidirectional neural- interface platform in that a network of minimally invasive, hybrid electrical-acoustic implants are distributed over the brain surface. These implants will 1) be small (millimeter scale), light, free-floating, addressable, and wireless, 2) simultaneously provide high-density electrophysiology recording (µECOG) and ultrasonic stimulation with high spatiotemporal resolution of several micrometers and milliseconds, 3) stimulate different distributed regions of the brain parenchyma through focusing an ultrasonic beam by an array of thin-film ultrasonic transducers (without penetration into the brain parenchyma), and 4) acoustically guide both µECOG recording and ultrasonic stimulation by imaging neural structure under the implant.