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Silicon/Neuron Interface This project is no longer active. Heads: Kaigham Gabriel and Yoky Matsuoka Contact: Yoky Matsuoka (yoky@cs.washington.edu) Mailing address: Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Associated labs/groups: Microelectromechanical Systems Laboratory and Neurobotics Laboratory

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Project Description

	The ultimate goal of this project is to create chronically implantable neural interfaces that may be used to control external devices and replace lost sensory input. We are investigating conductive polymer coatings to promote more intimate connections between cells and metal electrodes, leading to a device that would be safe for long-term use and that would produce low-noise chronic single-unit recordings.
Our long-term goal is to construct an integrated device based on these coatings and the CMU CMOS-MEMS process that will entrap living cells within the device structure and use the processes of those cells as the connection to a host nervous system. To this end, we are also studying improvements to existing methods of controlling neurons in vitro such as microcontact printing of cell adhesion molecules.
	Currently, we evaluate the biocompatibility and performance of a candidate polythiophene. Our most recent results demonstrate that primary dissociated rodent neurons can grow and survive for periods of days or longer on conductive polymer self-assembled monolayers when those monolayers are doped with the neural cell adhesion molecule L1. The exact maximum duration of survival is unknown, but could be indefinite with the correct culture medium and adhesion molecule substrate. Even the limited survival observed to date enables in vitro electrophysiology to further evaluate candidate polymers.

Past members

	Name	Title	Email Address
	Kaigham Gabriel	Professor, RI/ECE	kgabriel@ece.cmu.edu
	Carl Lagenaur	Associate Professor, Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh	lagenaur+@pitt.edu
	Yoky Matsuoka	Adjunct Faculty (Adjunct)	yoky@cs.washington.edu
	Nathan Urban	, Bio Sci
	Victor Weedn	Principal Research Scientist, ECE	weedn@cmu.edu
	Alik Sunil Widge	PhD Student, RI

Publications

Note: This list may not be comprehensive. It contains only those publications in the RI publications database. Entries are listed in reverse chronological order.

• Conductive Polymer 'Molecular Wires' Increase Electrical Conductance Across Artificial Cell Membranes
  A.S. Widge, M. Jeffries-El, and Y. Matsuoka
  In The 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, September, 2004, pp. 5058 - 5063. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [383 KB] copyrighted

• Conductive Polymer 'Molecular Wires' For Neuro-Robotic Interfaces
  A.S. Widge, M. Jeffries-El, C. Lagenaur, V. Weedn, and Y. Matsuoka
  Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA '04), May, 2004. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [536 KB] copyrighted