Chronic Intracortical Recording and Electrochemical Stability of Thiol-ene/Acrylate Shape Memory Polymer Electrode Arrays
Abstract
Current intracortical probe technology is limited in clinical implementation due to the short functional lifetime of implanted devices. Devices often fail several months to years post-implantation, likely due to the chronic immune response characterized by glial scarring and neuronal dieback. It has been demonstrated that this neuroinflammatory response is influenced by the mechanical mismatch between stiff devices and the soft brain tissue, spurring interest in the use of softer polymer materials for probe encapsulation. Here, we demonstrate stable recordings and electrochemical properties obtained from fully encapsulated shape memory polymer (SMP) intracortical electrodes implanted in the rat motor cortex for 13 weeks. SMPs are a class of material that exhibit modulus changes when exposed to specific conditions. The formulation used in these devices softens by an order of magnitude after implantation compared to its dry, room-temperature modulus of ~2 GPa.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 29, 2018
- Source ID
- 10.3390/mi9100500
Entities
People
- Alexandra Joshi-Imre
- Allison M Stiller
- Bryan J Black
- Christopher Frewin
- Joseph Pancrazio
- Joshua Usoro
- Kate Musselman
- Melanie Ecker
- Romil Modi
- Vindhya Danda
- Walter Voit
Organizations
- Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs