Electronic dura mater for long-term multimodal neural interfaces

Science 9 January 2015: 
Vol. 347 no. 6218 pp. 159-163 
DOI: 10.1126/science.1260318

• REPORT

Electronic dura mater for long-term multimodal neural interfaces

1. Ivan R. Minev1,*, 
2. Pavel Musienko2,3,*, 
3. Arthur Hirsch1, 
4. Quentin Barraud2, 
5. Nikolaus Wenger2,
6. Eduardo Martin Moraud4, 
7. Jérôme Gandar2, 
8. Marco Capogrosso4, 
9. Tomislav Milekovic2, 
10. Léonie Asboth2,
11. Rafael Fajardo Torres2, 
12. Nicolas Vachicouras1,2, 
13. Qihan Liu5, 
14. Natalia Pavlova2,3, 
15. Simone Duis2,
16. Alexandre Larmagnac6, 
17. Janos Vörös6, 
18. Silvestro Micera4,7, 
19. Zhigang Suo5, 
20. Grégoire Courtine2,†,‡,
21. Stéphanie P. Lacour1,†,‡

+Author Affiliations

1. ¹Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology, Laboratory for Soft Bioelectronic Interfaces, Centre for Neuroprosthetics, Institute of Microengineering and Institute of Bioengineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
2. ²International Paraplegic Foundation Chair in Spinal Cord Repair, Centre for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, EPFL, Switzerland.
3. ³Pavlov Institute of Physiology, St. Petersburg, Russia.
4. ⁴Translational Neural Engineering Laboratory, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Institute of Bioengineering, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland.
5. ⁵School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
6. ⁶Laboratory for Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Institute for Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
7. ⁷The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa 56025, Italy.

1. ↵‡Corresponding author. E-mail: gregoire.courtine@epfl.ch (G.C.); stephanie.lacour@epfl.ch (S.P.L.)

1. ↵* These authors contributed equally to this work.
2. ↵† These authors contributed equally to this work.

• ABSTRACT
• EDITOR'S SUMMARY

The mechanical mismatch between soft neural tissues and stiff neural implants hinders the long-term performance of implantable neuroprostheses. Here, we designed and fabricated soft neural implants with the shape and elasticity of dura mater, the protective membrane of the brain and spinal cord. The electronic dura mater, which we call e-dura, embeds interconnects, electrodes, and chemotrodes that sustain millions of mechanical stretch cycles, electrical stimulation pulses, and chemical injections. These integrated modalities enable multiple neuroprosthetic applications. The soft implants extracted cortical states in freely behaving animals for brain-machine interface and delivered electrochemical spinal neuromodulation that restored locomotion after paralyzing spinal cord injury.

• Received for publication 22 August 2014.
• Accepted for publication 27 November 2014.

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