Implanted intracortical electrodes as chronic neural interfaces to the central nervous system
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Bioengineering, Neuroscience
- Keywords
- chronic neural interfaces, central nervous system, intracortical electrodes
- Copyright
- © 2015 Henderson
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. Implanted intracortical electrodes as chronic neural interfaces to the central nervous system. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1255v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1255v1
Abstract
Recent developments in neural interfaces show that it is possible to have fine control of a robotic prosthetic by interfacing with the motor cortex of the human brain. Development of long term systems for this purpose is a challenging task with many different possibilities. Intracortical implants have shown the most promise in providing enough signal selectivity and throughput for complex control systems with many degrees of freedom. Intracortical systems generally fall into two categories: MEMS devices and bundle of wire systems. While both show promise, MEMS systems have been greatly popularized due to their reproducibility. In particular, the Michigan probe and Utah microarray are often used as a base for construction of more complex intracortical systems. However, these systems still carry many downsides. Their long-term viability is questionable, with mixed results. The effects of damage from implantation are still inconclusive and immune responses remain a problem for long-term use. While there is some promising research in the use of bioactive molecules and biocompatible materials to prevent immune responses, more controlled study is needed before intracortical systems become widespread.
Author Comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ for public review. It is an literature review of the current state of intracortical electrode systems.