Transfer-free Fabrication and Assessment of Transparent Multilayer CVD Graphene MEAs for in-vitro Optogenetic Studies

Electronic interfaces, particularly microelectrode arrays (MEAs), are crucial for studying electrophysiological processes in the body, with applications ranging from implants to deep brain simulators. In neuroscience, they play a vital role in exploring neuronal cell distribution and behaviour, as well as disorders like epilepsy and Alzheimer’s...

3D Microelectrode Integration in Muscle-on-Chip device

The current drug development process is a costly effort both in terms of budget and time. Organ-on-Chip (OoC) technologies are rapidly developing and are used for various applications and studies that aim to reduce the costs of this process. They represent the convergence between tissue engineering and microfluidic technology to provide...

Recording Neuronal Activity On Chip with Segmented 3D Microelectrode Arrays

We present preliminary recordings on chip of three-dimensional (3D) electric neuronal activity from cultures of cortical neurons derived from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). The recordings were obtained through 3D microelectrode arrays (MEAs) composed of truncated, 90 μm-high Si micropyramids endowed with multiple, electrically...

Microelectronic design of a pseudo voltage clamp for a 0.18um CMOS-based mesoscale neural interface for intracellular in-vitro recording and stimulation

The need to understand how the brain works has sparked interest in electrode arrays to record neural signals. Intracellular recordings with nanoelectrodes that penetrate the cell allow better signal quality and additional functions such as voltage clamping to set the neuron's transmembrane voltage. The voltage clamp aims to facilitate the...

Design, Integration and Characterization of Microelectrodes for Heart-On-Chip Applications

The lack of reliable disease models hampers the development of safe and effective drugs for humansas they fail to precisely identify the cardiotoxicity profile of drug compounds. Recent technological advancements have led to the development of the"Organ-On-Chip"(OOC) technology. OOCs are miniaturized micro-engineered devices which aim to...

Microelectromechanical Organs-on-Chip

Stemming from the convergence of tissue engineering and microfluidics, organ-on-chip (OoC) technology can reproduce in vivo-like dynamic microphysiological environments for tissues in vitro. The possibility afforded by OoC devices of realistic recapitulation of tissue and organ (patho)physiology may hold the key to bridge the current...

Oscillator based Analog-to-Digital Converter for Action Potential Readout in Microelectrode Arrays

The functioning of the brain depends on the interplay between a large number of neurons. To understand the information processing in neuronal networks, we need tools to record the electrical activity of cells at high resolution. Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are predominantly used to measure neuronal activity<br/>at high spatial and temporal...

A 3D microelectrode array to record neural activity at different tissue depths

Measuring neuronal responses along all three spatial dimensions is the next step, beyond the capacity of established 2D microelectrode arrays (MEAs), to record electric activity inside tissues with highly accurate spatial resolution. This research presents silicon-based planar arrays of 3D microelectrodes, whereby each microelectrode supports...

Low-Impedance PEDOT:PSS MEA Integrated in a Stretchable Organ-on-Chip Device

We present the first Organ-on-Chip equipped with a low-impedance Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) MicroElectrode Array (MEA). The novel device allows simultaneous mechanical stimulation with a stretchable PDMS membrane and electrical monitoring via the PEDOT:PSS MEA of multiple in vitro cell cultures. The...

Functional Characterization of Human iPSC-Derived Neural Networks using MEA Systems for in vitro Modeling of Psychiatric Disorders

Psychiatric disorders are associated with major societal, personal issues and comprise 13% of the global burden of disease. They are heritable and present a complex pathophysiology, characterized by hundreds of genetic variants which are cumulated together and provoke a specific psychiatric disorder. Although a considerable progress has been...

Novel microelectrode arrays for in-vitro analysis of neural activity

Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are extensively used for measuring neural activity in-vitro given their ability to monitor several neurons simultaneously unlike techniques such as patch clamp. However, MEAs still have limitations in acquiring high spatial resolution data due to limited number of channels that can be parallelly scanned, the need for...

Organ-on-Silicon

The cost and the development time of pharamecutical products are often severely affected by the in vitro tests currently employed in pharmaceutical R&amp;D. These assays are often failing to accurately recapitulate diseases and to predict human responses to new medicines. Organ-on-Chip (OOC) devices are designed to result in advanced in vitro...

Design and MEMS Microfabrication of an Optrode for Combined Optogenetics and Electrophysiology Studies

Optogenetics is a biological technique that uses light to control cells in living tissues, typically neurons, that have been genetically modified to express light-sensitive ion channels. Using this technique, neuroscientists can investigate the neural circuits underlying neurological diseases with a higher spatio-temporal resolution when...

Fabrication and Characterization of PEDOT coated Microelectrodes Array for Organ-on-Chip Application

Organ-on-Chips (OOCs) are micro-fabricated devices that combine micro-engineering with in-vitro cell culturing. This combination results in an in-vitro model that mimics the minimal functional unit of a human organ. OOC devices are expected to provide accurate and predictive screening tools that will eventually reduce false negatives and false...

Fabrication and Characterization of an Upside-Down Carbon Nanotube Microelectrode Array

Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are widely used in biological application to locally stimulate and record the electrical activity of living cells. Here, a novel fabrication process for a carbon nanotube (CNT)-based MEA integrated on the backside of a free standing stretchable membrane is reported. The new<br/>process flow overcomes the manually...

Flexible active electrode arrays with ASICs that fit inside the rat’s spinal canal

Epidural spinal cord electrical stimulation (ESCS) has been used as a means to facilitate locomotor recovery in spinal cord injured humans. Electrode arrays, instead of conventional pairs of electrodes, are necessary to investigate the effect of ESCS at different sites. These usually require a large number of implanted wires, which could lead to...

Substrate-dependent kinetics in tyrosinase-based biosensing: Amperometry vs. spectrophotometry

Despite the broad use of enzymes in electroanalytical biosensors, the influence of enzyme kinetics on the function of prototype sensors is often overlooked or neglected. In the present study, we employ amperometry as an alternative or complementary method to study the kinetics of tyrosinase, whose catalytic activity results in o-quinone products...

Carbon-based Composite Electrodes: Preparation, Characterization and Application in Electroanalysis

Electrodes based on carbon, i.e., expanded graphite (20%, wt.)-epoxy composite (20EG-Epoxy) and expanded graphite (20%, wt.)-polystyrene composite (20EG-PS) have been prepared, characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and cyclic voltammetry (CV), and tested as anodic sensors. The electrodes exhibited good mechanical resistance and...