Neuroscience and Neural Engineering

Researchers working at the intersection of neuroscience and engineering develop devices that can record from and electrically stimulate neurons, with the goal of restoring or augmenting lost sensory and motor function in people with neurological damage. Electrode arrays implanted in the brain or retina can, for instance, translate electrical signals into perceived light for blind patients or decode motor intentions to drive robotic limbs, but the long-term viability of these implants depends heavily on how living tissue reacts to a foreign object over months and years. A persistent challenge is the brain's chronic inflammatory response to implanted hardware, which degrades signal quality and can render devices ineffective well before their clinical work is done. Current research is exploring how nanomaterials and surface coatings can make electrodes softer, smaller, and chemically less provocative to surrounding tissue, while also pushing toward denser arrays that can resolve finer patterns of neural activity.

Works

73,626

Total citations

1,509,424

Keywords

Neural StimulationElectrode ArraysNeuroprosthesesRetinal ProsthesisNanomaterialsChronic Recording