Department of Biomedical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701401, Taiwan.
Medical Device Innovation Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701401, Taiwan.
ACS Nano. 2023 May 23;17(10):9140-9154. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.2c12438. Epub 2023 May 10.
An accurate method for neural stimulation within the brain could be very useful for treating brain circuit dysfunctions and neurological disorders. With the aim of developing such a method, this study investigated the use of piezoelectric molybdenum disulfide nanosheets (MoS NS) to remotely convert ultrasound energy into localized electrical stimulation and . The application of ultrasound to cells surrounding MoS NS required only a single pulse of 2 MHz ultrasound (400 kPa, 1,000,000 cycles, and 500 ms pulse duration) to elicit significant responses in 37.9 ± 7.4% of cells in terms of fluxes of calcium ions without detectable cellular damage. The proportion of responsive cells was mainly influenced by the acoustic pressure, number of ultrasound cycles, and concentration of MoS NS. Tests using appropriate blockers revealed that voltage-gated membrane channels were activated. data suggested that, with ultrasound stimulation, neurons closest to the MoS NS were 3-fold more likely to present c-Fos expression than cells far from the NS. The successful activation of neurons surrounding MoS NS suggests that this represents a method with high spatial precision for selectively modulating one or several targeted brain circuits.
一种能在大脑内进行精确神经刺激的方法，对于治疗大脑回路功能障碍和神经紊乱可能非常有用。本研究旨在开发这样一种方法，探索使用压电二硫化钼纳米片（MoS NS）将超声能量远程转化为局部电刺激[1,2]。将超声应用于 MoS NS 周围的细胞，只需施加单个 2 MHz 超声脉冲（400 kPa，1,000,000 个循环，500 ms 脉冲持续时间），就可以在 37.9±7.4%的细胞中引起明显的钙离子通量反应，而不会造成可检测到的细胞损伤。响应细胞的比例主要受声压、超声循环次数和 MoS NS 浓度的影响。使用适当的阻断剂进行的测试表明，电压门控膜通道被激活[3,4]。[5]数据表明，在超声刺激下，距离 MoS NS 最近的神经元出现 c-Fos 表达的可能性是远离 NS 的细胞的 3 倍。MoS NS 周围神经元的成功激活表明，这是一种具有高度空间精度的方法，可以选择性地调节一个或几个靶向大脑回路。
