Have you ever wondered about how the brain works, how and why neurons interact with each other, how and why neurons “wire up” into functional circuits, and how neural circuits produce behavior? Can we harness this understanding into developing therapies that are beneficial for patients with neurological or neurodegenerative diseases? These and many more are questions on the minds of many Neuroscientists and Clinicians. One way to attempt to answer these questions is by directly interacting with the nervous system using microelectrodes to record neuro-signals or stimulate the neural circuit.
Our research is focused on developing materials and methods for developing the next generation of neural interfaces. We employ standard semiconductor microfabrication techniques to engineer micro and nanoscale materials and develop flexible neural interfaces that enable Neuroscientists to answer some of the questions on their minds. With this method, we could engineer high-density flexible microelectrodes of the same size as neurons and with neuron contact sites that span the breadth and width of the brain. Recently, we developed microelectrodes from amorphous silicon carbide films with a projected lifetime of over a decade when implanted in vivo.
Felix Deku is an assistant professor of neuroengineering at the Knight Campus. His research focuses on the development of chronically reliable neural interfaces for human use. He is also interested in understanding the physiological effects of neuromodulation and their correlations to functional benefit.