Travis Massey
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley
BSAC Graduate Researcher, Michel Maharbiz Group
June 12, 2018 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 490 Cory Hall
Host: Michael Cable
Increasingly advanced tools are desired for detecting electrical activity in the brain, with many applications demanding ever greater channel count and finer sampling pitch to maximize neural information gathered while still minimizing the adverse biological response to the implanted device. I will present a 32-channel carbon fiber microwire neural recording array with electrode pitch four times finer than the state of the art and the finest microwire electrodes demonstrated to date. The transition to an out-of-plane architectural paradigm enables these advances, with 5 µm diameter carbon fiber monofilament recording electrodes threaded through a two-dimensional array of holes in a microfabricated silicon substrate. In addition to minimizing electrode diameter and pitch, this design and assembly process is fundamentally scalable to an arbitrary number of recording electrodes. To aid in the assembly procedure, we demonstrate a mechatronic system to automate the sole serial step of threading carbon fibers through the substrate with submicron precision. With this capability and the potential to integrate electronics with the silicon substrate, true scalability is feasible in a microwire-style neural recording array. Finally, the arrays are validated in vivo, recording single-unit action potentials from a rat’s primary motor cortex. maharbizgroup.wordpress.com | bsac.berkeley.edu/rsscast
VIEW PRESENTATION
---
Interested in nominating someone to speak at the BSAC Technology Seminar? We welcome you to submit a speaker nomination here