Projekte

I​n MIND project we aim for establishing a chronic and concurrent voltammetry optioninour validated animal model of depression. This inturnwill leadtoanincreasedunderstandingof the dynamics of spatial and temporal relationship of medial forebrain bundle (MFB) deep brain stimulation (DBS)withintheneural networksassociatedwithdepression. Totackle this challenge a novel hybrid multi-modal DBS probe is proposed which facilitates electrical stimulation as well as the recording capability addressing both electrophysiological and neurochemical activities, i.e. dopaminergic fluctuations. To realize the sensory function, fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV) initially at carbon fiber microelectrode(CFM) is used to provide exquisite temporal and spatial resolution for monitoring the neurochemicals of interest. FSCV in rat models showed a clear increasing behavior after systemic injection of amphetamine which can be attributed to dopamine and considered as an evaluation on the developed platform.However,accountingfor thefidelity andstability of theCFMinlong-term applications, seeking for alternative sensing interfaces is inevitable. Electrophysiological recording is included to monitor the neural activity and to realize the concept, the needed instrumentation is set up and optimized for the application. Electrophysiological recordingis used to evaluate/understand the observed voltammograms after systemic injection of amphetaminethattriggersdopaminerelease. Inparallel studies,morepromisingalternatives to CFM including diamond like carbon (DLC), novel laser induced carbon and PEDOT coatings are investigated and their electrochemical performance (​in vitro ​ ) is evaluated. Compatibility of theproposedinterfacingmaterials withthin-filmelectrodesmakes it possible to integrate them and investigate their functionality on the multimodal hybrid probe which potentially paves our way towards clinical applications.