Project description
Minimally invasive injectable neural devices for neurological impairments
Neural devices used in the brain and spinal cord have led to medical advancements for individuals with spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s disease, and hearing loss. However, these devices are often large, complex, and invasive, limiting their availability. The ERC-funded NANeurO project aims to create a minimally invasive nanoelectrode system for wireless, selective, and multiplexed neural stimulation. The project will develop nanoscale, injectable, and wireless neural devices that reduce invasiveness and address the medical needs of those with neurological impairments. Building on previous work with nanoelectrodes, it will optimise these devices and explore various nanomaterials, specifically investigating how the size and shape of nanoelectrodes affect their signaling and stimulation capabilities.
Objective
Neural devices used in the brain and spinal cord have yielded medical breakthroughs to improve the lives of people with spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, and hearing loss. However, current neural devices are large, complex, and invasive, and are therefore used by only a fraction of people who could benefit from them. Instead, I want to make neural devices that are nanoscale, injectable, and wireless. By lowering invasiveness and implantation risk, this technology could address the unmet medical needs of more people with neurological impairments.
The work proposed herein is to develop a minimally invasive nanoelectrode system capable of wireless, spatially selective, and multiplexed neural stimulation. I have previously developed nanoelectrodes that directly stimulated (i.e. with no genetic/biochemical neuron modification) the deep brain of mice as a proof-of-concept. This was possible because, unlike other wireless neural technologies, device powering was nonresonant, and thus independent of size. In my proposed research I will now develop optimized nanoelectrodes, and I will approach this by developing a toolbox of nanomaterials to study and learn from. In particular, I will look at how nanoelectrode size and shape affects signal/response and neurostimulation. This approach will generate new, enabling technologies, such as the ability to individually stimulate some particles while ignoring others, for multiplexed stimulation control.
While the field of nanoscale and wireless neuroelectrodes is exceptionally small, new, and high risk, the proposed work could one day enable minimally invasive, wireless neural modulation.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2023-STG
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80333 Muenchen
Germany
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