School of Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Chem Soc Rev. 2019 Mar 18;48(6):1826-1852. doi: 10.1039/c8cs00710a.
Neurological and psychiatric conditions pose an increasing socioeconomic burden on our aging society. Our ability to understand and treat these conditions relies on the development of reliable tools to study the dynamics of the underlying neural circuits. Despite significant progress in approaches and devices to sense and modulate neural activity, further refinement is required on the spatiotemporal resolution, cell-type selectivity, and long-term stability of neural interfaces. Guided by the principles of neural transduction and by the materials properties of the neural tissue, recent advances in neural interrogation approaches rely on flexible and multifunctional devices. Among these approaches, multimaterial fibers have emerged as integrated tools for sensing and delivering of multiple signals to and from the neural tissue. Fiber-based neural probes are produced by thermal drawing process, which is the manufacturing approach used in optical fiber fabrication. This technology allows straightforward incorporation of multiple functional components into microstructured fibers at the level of their macroscale models, preforms, with a wide range of geometries. Here we will introduce the multimaterial fiber technology, its applications in engineering fields, and its adoption for the design of multifunctional and flexible neural interfaces. We will discuss examples of fiber-based neural probes tailored to the electrophysiological recording, optical neuromodulation, and delivery of drugs and genes into the rodent brain and spinal cord, as well as their emerging use for studies of nerve growth and repair.
神经和精神疾病给我们老龄化的社会带来了日益增长的社会经济负担。我们理解和治疗这些疾病的能力依赖于开发可靠的工具来研究潜在神经回路的动态。尽管在感知和调节神经活动的方法和设备方面取得了重大进展，但神经接口的时空分辨率、细胞类型选择性和长期稳定性仍需要进一步改进。受神经转导原理和神经组织材料特性的指导，最近在神经检测方法方面的进展依赖于灵活和多功能的设备。在这些方法中，多材料纤维已成为向神经组织传输和接收多种信号的集成工具。纤维状神经探针是通过热拉伸工艺生产的，这是光纤制造中使用的制造方法。该技术允许在宏观模型（预制件）级别上轻松地将多种功能组件纳入微结构纤维中，具有广泛的几何形状。在这里，我们将介绍多材料纤维技术、其在工程领域的应用以及它在多功能和灵活神经接口设计中的应用。我们将讨论针对啮齿动物大脑和脊髓的电生理记录、光神经调节以及药物和基因传递的纤维状神经探针的实例，以及它们在神经生长和修复研究中的新兴应用。
