EAGER: Long Term Reliable Neural Recordings and Neuro Modulation Using GHz to THz Ultrasonics

在最广泛的意义上，脑机接口在治疗疾病和提供新的人机交流机制方面具有潜在的影响。数以千计的新脊髓损伤病例导致近25万人不同程度的截瘫，原因是车祸、暴力事件和其他身体创伤。受影响的个体通过手术进行治疗，通常需要假肢，由于大脑和假肢执行器和相关控制电子设备之间缺乏信息带宽，假肢在许多方面都是原始的。该项目可能导致可靠的脑机接口神经元和外周轴突，以在患者的一生中提供更大的信息带宽。许多帕金森氏病患者可以利用终生神经接口，通过可靠的感知和驱动来反馈控制电活动。超声方法将干细胞可靠地表达到健康的神经元中，可能会导致一种有针对性的方法，通过在大脑和周围组织中集中表达干细胞来修复大脑受损部分。可靠的终身界面也将为社会带来新的生产力方式。能够收集大脑信号并使用数据来确定日常生活中所需的处理过程，可能会为人类完成更多任务提供新的方法，从而提高社会进步到未来所需的生产力。该项目还将培训一名电气工程专业的学生，学习生物和神经工程，形成一套多学科的技能。这项工作还将产生一门关于从GHz到THz超声波的科学与技术的新课程，生成一份针对K-12到应用物理、电气工程和生物医学工程研究生课程的在线课程材料。电子接口对神经科学和神经治疗的影响受到两个主要挑战的限制。一个挑战是电神经接口长期失效，另一个挑战是缺乏使用干细胞疗法对轴突和神经元进行非侵入性、局部刺激的技术，分辨率为1-5？m，用于神经激活和愈合。研究中经常使用由采样神经元产生的电位和电流的电极组成的电接口，其中一些甚至已经开发出具有射频供电和射频数据链接的可植入系统。然而，神经探头的寿命不会超过几周到几个月，因为电极上的组织积聚隔离了信号流，即使是电容式读数也是如此。这一广泛的探索性项目将导致识别从GHz到THz的高频超声波应用于神经细胞和组织的新效应。由于在实验室进行高频超声波的难度很大，这种能力在很大程度上还没有被探索出来，并将结果转化为在动物模型中的实际使用，并最终应用于人类。通过使用一种能够实现芯片微型化的技术，可能会发现新的超声波效应，可以转化为终身可行的神经接口的实践。这些影响包括在超高频范围内的新的超声波吸收模式，以及在具有时变的化学和物理变化的神经环境中。使用从10微米到纳米范围的非常小的波长，超声波可以聚焦到单个神经组件，如神经束的单个轴突，而不需要侵入性探头。

Brain machine interfaces in the broadest sense have potential impacts on treating diseases and providing new mechanisms for human-machine communications. Thousands of new cases of spinal cord injury result in almost quarter million individuals in various degrees of paraplegia, due to automobile accidents, violent incidents, and other physical traumas. The affected individuals are treated by surgery and often require prosthetics which are in many ways primitive owing to a lack of information bandwidth between the brain and the prosthetic actuators and associated control electronics. This project could lead to reliable brain machine interfaces to neurons and peripheral axons to covey greater bandwidth of information over the lifetime of patients. Many patients suffering from Parkinson's disease can utilize life-long neural interfaces to feedback control electrical activities both through reliable sensing and actuation. Ultrasonic methods to reliably express stem cells into healthy neurons may lead to a targeted approach to repairing damaged parts of the brain by focused expression of stem cells inside brain and peripheral tissues. Reliable life-long interfaces will also lead to new ways for society to be productive. Being able to collect brain signals and using the data to ascertain processing required in daily life may provide new ways for humans to accomplish more tasks providing a productivity boost needed for society to progress into the future. This project will also train an electrical engineering student in biology and neural engineering producing a multidisciplinary skill-set. The work will also result in a new course on Science and Technology of GHz to THz Ultrasonic, generating an online course material aimed from K-12 to graduate program in Applied Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering.Impact of electronic interfaces to neuroscience and neuro therapy is limited by two major challenges. One challenge is the failure of electrical neural interfaces over long term, and the other is the lack of technology for non-invasive, localized excitation of axons and neurons with 1-5ìm resolution for nerve activation and healing using stem cell therapies. Electrical interfaces consisting of electrodes that sample neuron generated potentials and currents are regularly used in research, some even with RF-powered and RF-data linked implantable systems have been developed. However, the neural probes do not last beyond a few weeks to a few months, as tissue buildup on the electrodes insulates the signal flow, even with capacitive readout. This broad exploratory project will lead to the identification of new effects of high frequency ultrasonics from GHz to THz, applied to neural cells and tissues. This capability is largely unexplored owing to the difficulty of conducting high frequency ultrasonic in the laboratory, and have the results translated to actual use in animal models and eventually into humans. By using a technology that enables miniaturization into CMOS chips, new ultrasonic effects may be discovered that can be translated into practice for life-long viable neural interfaces. These effects include new modes of ultrasonic absorption in ultrahigh frequency ranges, and in neural environments with time varying chemical and physical changes. Using the very small wavelengths in the 10s of microns to nanometer range, ultrasonic waves can be focused to individual neural components such as a single axon of a nerve bundle, without invasive probes.