Chronic Neural Interfaces

Integrated systems serving as chronically stable, high-performance electronic recording and stimulation interfaces to the nervous system, with cellular-level resolution across macroscopic areas, are of broad interest to neuroscience. Challenges remain in the development of biocompatible materials serving as the sensing elements and encapsulation for chronic implantation, the fashion design of flexible implants for the achievement of mechanical compliance, where eventual goals are for performance comparable to conventional wafer-based technologies and operational spans nearing the human lifespan. This chapter outlines recent advances in this field, with a focus on active and passive constituent materials, design geometries, and integration modes, all of which achieve necessary levels of biocompatibility, electronic performance, and long-term stable operation. A survey has been conducted on bioelectronic systems with the capability of performing multiplexed electrophysiological mapping with high spatiotemporal resolution, with special emphasis on those that have been shown to have chronic stability in living animal models and can expand to thousands of channels on the human brain scale.

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