Projects

Optogenetic interaction with neural tissue enables neuroscientists to alter the electrical activity of specific types of neurons in well-defined brain regions. Besides the development of opsins and respective methods for their expression in neurons, miniaturized optical tools, i.e. so called optrodes for simultaneous tissue illumination and electrophysiological recording, represent a recent research topic in biomedical engineering. In optoPACK we aim to establish the technological foundation to integrate and encapsulate micro light sources, i.e. laser diodes (LD) and light emitting diodes (LED), directly in neural probes developed at IMTEK. These neural probes are either silicon or polyimide-based micro electrode arrays used for intracortical or epicortical in vivo recording applications. Depending on the type of light source, polymer-based optical waveguides will we integrated on the probe substrates as well. The direct integration of light sources into these probe arrays allows to further miniaturize optrodes and, most important, to control these systems via electrical signals only.