Sensing Nerve Activity with Scalable and Robust Nerve Interfaces

Sensing the electrical activity of peripheral nerves with high spatial resolution is needed to accurately capture dynamic and detailed movement intent of amputees and could be helpful to adapt the treatment of other disease states through closed-loop neuromodulation of bioelectronic medicines. However, existing nerve interfaces have designs that significantly limit their recording performance. To overcome these limitations, we have combined micromachined neural interfaces with tissue- engineered hydrogel-based scaffolds. These tissue-engineered electronic nerve interfaces (TEENI) enable highly scalable nerve interfaces that provide significant interface-design freedom. To speed the development of a robust microfabrication processes, a high-temperature reactive-accelerated-aging (RAA) soak test is used. Chronic electrophysiological experiments demonstrate high- SNR recording performance for implanted TEENI devices.