The CSIC, IK4-Ikerlan and the University of Saragossa develop a microscopic probe

A multidisciplinary team of researchers of the Upper Council of Scientific Investigations (CSIC), the Centre of Technological Investigations Ikerlan and the Institute of Investigation in Engineering of Aragon of the University of Saragossa, has developed an able microscopic probe to register the neural activity and apply, at the same time, drugs in the brain. The new device, flexible and biocompatible, is manufactured on a polymer, what allows interactuar to microscopic scales never before reached.

The development, described in an article published in the magazine 'Lab on to Chip', supposes an advance in the farmacological intervention, genetic or electrical to study the neural activity, since it improves the circuits and devices in miniature manufactured on substrata of silicon, more rigid and with secondary effects. The device has been tested experimentally in alive in rats.

“In a lot of cases, the detection of the epilepsy, the Parkinson and the Alzheimer only can realise through electrodes implanted of form semicrónica in the brain of the patients. The technologies employed for this have to be, thus, the less invasivas possible and have to guarantee an answer biocompatible, as well as the integrity of the adjacent neural circuits to the implant”, explains the researcher of the CSIC in the Institute Cajal Liset Menéndez of the Prida, scientific coordinator of the project.

The new device is manufactured on the polymer HIS-8 and is able to integrate the microscopic register of the neural activity with channels fluídicos for the application of the drugs. “His design contrasts with the rigidity of the implants of silicon, that still have secondary effects, what has limited the definite expansion of this technician for the development of interfaces brain-machine”, ensures Pink Villa, researcher of the CSIC in the Institute of Microelectrónica of Barcelona.

Ane Altuna, researcher in Ikerlan and responsible of the technological part, precise: “we Have achieved to contribute a new approach in the manufacture and the design, what has allowed us integrate the electrodes to the same level that the surface of the polymer. The back integration of the channels fluídicos llevar by means of technicians of lithography and the development of a system of encapsulado that guarantees the register and the simultaneous release of the drugs”.

The researchers look for now companies interested in his patent with the aim to manufacture this technology on a large scale. For this, have begun to design a program in phase beta for proofs of user that allow testar the new devices with the aim to design prototypes oriented to the application biomédica.