Highly Stable Glassy Carbon Interfaces for Long-Term Neural Stimulation and Low-Noise Recording of Brain Activity

Maria Vomero; Elisa Castagnola; Francesca Ciarpella; Emma Maggiolini; Noah Goshi; Elena Zucchini; Stefano Carli; Luciano Fadiga; Sam Kassegne; Davide Ricci

doi:10.1038/srep40332

journal article Open Access Jan 13, 2017

Highly Stable Glassy Carbon Interfaces for Long-Term Neural Stimulation and Low-Noise Recording of Brain Activity

Maria Vomero Elisa Castagnola

Francesca Ciarpella Emma Maggiolini Noah Goshi Elena Zucchini Stefano Carli

Luciano Fadiga Sam Kassegne Davide Ricci

Scientific Reports Vol. 7 No. 1 · Springer Science and Business Media LLC

View at Publisher Save 10.1038/srep40332

Abstract

AbstractWe report on the superior electrochemical properties,in-vivoperformance and long term stability under electrical stimulation of a new electrode material fabricated from lithographically patterned glassy carbon. For a direct comparison with conventional metal electrodes, similar ultra-flexible, micro-electrocorticography (μ-ECoG) arrays with platinum (Pt) or glassy carbon (GC) electrodes were manufactured. The GC microelectrodes have more than 70% wider electrochemical window and 70% higher CTC (charge transfer capacity) than Pt microelectrodes of similar geometry. Moreover, we demonstrate that the GC microelectrodes can withstand at least 5 million pulses at 0.45 mC/cm2charge density with less than 7.5% impedance change, while the Pt microelectrodes delaminated after 1 million pulses. Additionally, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT-PSS) was selectively electrodeposited on both sets of devices to specifically reduce their impedances for smaller diameters (<60 μm). We observed that PEDOT-PSS adhered significantly better to GC than Pt, and allowed drastic reduction of electrode size while maintaining same amount of delivered current. The electrode arrays biocompatibility was demonstrated throughin-vitrocell viability experiments, while acutein vivocharacterization was performed in rats and showed that GC microelectrode arrays recorded somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) with an almost twice SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) when compared to the Pt ones.

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References

Details

Published: Jan 13, 2017
Vol/Issue: 7(1)
License: View

Authors

Department of Bioengineering University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh PA 15213 USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering Louisiana Tech University Ruston LA 71272 USA

Department of Environmental and Prevention Sciences‐DEPS University of Ferrara Ferrara Italy

L

Luciano Fadiga

The authors are at the Instituto di Fisiologia Umana, Università di Parma, via Gramsci 14, 43100 Parma, Italy.[]

S

Sam Kassegne

Department of Mechanical Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182;

D

Davide Ricci

Cite This Article

Maria Vomero, Elisa Castagnola, Francesca Ciarpella, et al. (2017). Highly Stable Glassy Carbon Interfaces for Long-Term Neural Stimulation and Low-Noise Recording of Brain Activity. Scientific Reports, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep40332

Highly Stable Glassy Carbon Interfaces for Long-Term Neural Stimulation and Low-Noise Recording of Brain Activity

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