Soft, Wireless Optoelectronic Systems for Optogenetics

Advanced optoelectronic systems that intimately integrate with the brain and the peripheral nervous system have the potential to accelerate progress in neuroscience research and to spawn new therapies in clinical medicine. Specifically, capabilities for injecting electronics, light sources, photodetectors, multiplexed sensors, programmable microfluidic networks and other components into precise locations of the deep brain and for softly laminating them onto targeted regions of the surfaces of the brain or the peripheral nerves will open up unique and important opportunities in stimulation, inhibition and real-time monitoring of neural circuits via the combined techniques of optogenetics, photometry, electrical stimulation/sensing and local drug delivery. In this talk, we will describe foundational concepts in materials science and assembly processes for these types of technologies. Examples in system level demonstrations include experiments on freely moving animals with cellular-scale™, injectable optofluidic neural probes for optogenetics research and with closed-loop systems for optogenetic control of bladder function.