Smart multimodal neuroscience platform for enabling untethered behavioural experiments

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This program aims to develop new tools that will significantly ease and accelerate discovery of innovative therapeutics against neurodegenerative diseases through advanced wireless, multimodal, brain-interfacing technology. We propose to develop an innovative wireless platform to extract the direct brain responses to drugs in real time by probing brain microcircuits of freely behaving rodents with high spatial resolution, and at millisecond time-scale, through single cell electrophysiology technology, optogenetic capabilities, and brain imaging means, all combined within a single chronically implantable device.***This smart platform includes a lightweight wireless brain-computer interface (BMI) that is implantable in the body of mice and a wireless power transmission system to avoid frequent animal manipulations. A custom CMOS integrated circuits developed by our team will provide this BMI with large-scale sensing, optogenetic stimulation and fluorescence imaging capability, as well as intelligence, to interface with a new multifunctional BioMEMS that will give access to large groups of neurons at the micro and nano scale. We anticipate to scale down the size, the weight and the energy consumption of this BMI to unprecedented levels (1 cm3, 1g and 10 mW, respectively) by exploiting CMOS technology and multitechnology integration. All components will be developed through CMC Microsystems' academic services and integrated within a chronically implantable, autonomous microsystem, at the Advanced Biomedical Microsystem Integration Facility of the ECE Dept. in Laval University. ***In addition to enable several innovations and to address key challenges in microsystem design, wireless communications, energy harvesting and biomedical engineering, this program will develop a unique and world-class expertise in wireless instrumentation technology that will become the corner stone for the development of optogenetics and neuroscience research platforms for medicine and biomedical industries in Canada. This new technology will provide a unique platform to accelerate ground breaking research towards new treatments for brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, depression, and chronic pain, by enabling observation of brain microcircuits of freely behaving subjects in real time, which will have a measurable impact on the wealth of Canadians by reducing costs of healthcare, enabling new therapies and providing new tools to advance research. Indeed, the capability of precisely measuring the direct response of the brain to drugs at the scale of individual neurons at millisecond time-scale, yet during behaviour, will provide a direct performance indicator to increase drugs efficiency. On the long term, this research will leave a durable contribution by training, hiring, and retaining highly qualified personnel in biomedical engineering.