Validating MXene Electrodes for Next-Generation Electroencephalography

项目摘要 脑电(EEG)是神经病学重要的临床诊断和研究工具， 神经康复、认知和行为神经科学。然而，在100多年的脑电研究中 研究表明，基本的脑电技术仍然是原始的和改变游戏规则的技术 创新少之又少。大多数目前的脑电系统依赖于凝胶银/银- 氯化物或金属电极，用导电胶或糊状物固定在头皮上。这些设备受到了 从电极的大尺寸、成本、腐蚀风险、制备和清洗。此外, 凝胶和浆糊是获得足够的阻抗和信号质量所必需的，但可以 对皮肤有刺激性，随着时间推移会变干。干燥(即无凝胶)脑电系统可以绕过一些 这些湿式脑电设备的问题，但在受试者舒适度和信号方面仍然受到严重限制 质量。最后，与MRI兼容的脑电系统用于多模式脑成像通常是高度有效的 专门化和昂贵的。在这里，我们建议验证一种全新的干式脑电系统，该系统基于 MXene材质。MXenes具有高的生物相容性、稳定性、导电性、柔韧性和低 电化学阻抗。此外，它们可以低成本加工，很容易集成到 具有各种几何和形状的功能神经设备，用来记录脑电活动 高保真，不需要凝胶或浆糊，与磁场的相互作用很弱。这些 MXene的特性使其成为下一代脑电技术的理想材料。 在本计划中，我们将基于有前景的试点数据来扩大和优化制造和 MXene脑电电极的设计。具体地说，我们的目标是超越我们在 试验性研究，同时保持快速、经济高效和可靠的制造。然后，我们将验证 性能最佳的MXene电极在良好的行为任务中的性能 与易于识别的脑电频谱特征有关。最后，我们将检查核磁共振 定制的多通道MXene EEG系统在EEG/MRI同步标测中的兼容性 使用量化和临床医生对信号质量的评级，这是推动其广泛应用的关键步骤 在脑研究和临床环境中采用。通过完成这个项目，我们希望将 通过产生一种新的干式脑电技术来实现场前向，该技术具有卓越的分辨率、信号保真度和 与当前工具相比的易用性。这些优势可以为从根本上 多个领域的创新，包括临床神经学、康复和认知 神经科学。

PROJECT ABSTRACT Electroencephalography (EEG) is an essential clinical diagnostic and research tool in neurology, neurorehabilitation, cognitive, and behavioral neuroscience. However, in more than 100 years of EEG research, the fundamental EEG technology has remained primitive and game-changing technological innovations have been few and far between. Most current EEG systems rely on gelled silver/silver- chloride or metal electrodes affixed on the scalp with conductive gels or pastes. These devices suffer from the large size of the electrodes, cost, risk of corrosion, preparation, and cleaning. In addition, gels and pastes are necessary to achieve adequate impedance and signal quality, but can be irritating to the skin and dry out over time. Dry (i.e., gel-free) EEG systems can bypass some of the issues of these wet EEG devices, but are still critically limited in terms of subject comfort and signal quality. Finally, MRI-compatible EEG systems for multimodal brain mapping are often highly specialized and expensive. Here, we propose to validate a fully novel, dry EEG system based on MXene materials. MXenes offer high biocompatibility, stability, conductivity, flexibility and low electrochemical impedance. In addition, they can be processed at a low cost, easily integrated into functional neural devices with a variety of geometries and shapes, record brain electrical activity with high fidelity without the need for gels or pastes, and interact weakly with magnetic fields. These properties make MXene ideal to serve as enabling material for the next-generation EEG technologies. In this proposal, we will build on promising pilot data to scale-up and optimize the fabrication and design of MXene EEG electrodes. Specifically, we will aim to outperform the electrodes used in our pilot studies while maintaining fast, cost-effective, and reliable fabrication. Then, we will validate the performance of the best performing MXene electrodes on well-established behavioral tasks associated with readily identifiable EEG spectral characteristics. Finally, we will examine the MRI compatibility of a customized multichannel MXene EEG system for simultaneous EEG/MRI mapping using quantitative and clinician ratings of signal quality, an essential step to propel its widespread adoption in brain research and clinical contexts. By completing this project, we expect to move the field forward by generating a novel dry EEG technology with superior resolution, signal fidelity, and usability compared to current tools. These advantages could pave the way for fundamental innovations in a number of domains including clinical neurology, rehabilitation, and cognitive neuroscience.