Abstract
Mosquitos are among the deadliest insects on the planet due to their ability to transmit diseases like malaria through their bite. In order to bite, a mosquito must insert a set of micro-sized needles through the skin to reach vascular structures. The mosquito uses a combination of mechanisms including an insertion guide to enable it to bite and feed off of larger animals. Here, we report on a biomimetic strategy inspired by the mosquito insertion guide to enable the implantation of intracortical microelectrodes into the brain. Next generation microelectrode designs leveraging ultra-small dimensions and/or flexible materials offer the promise of increased performance, but present difficulties in reliable implantation. With the biomimetic guide in place, the rate of successful microprobe insertion increased from 37.5% to 100% due to the rise in the critical buckling force of the microprobes by 3.8-fold. The prototype guides presented here provide a reproducible method to augment the insertion of small, flexible devices into the brain. In the future, similar approaches may be considered and applied to the insertion of other difficult to implant medical devices.
Highlights
The parasitic bite of a female mosquito allows it to both inject an anticoagulant to thin the host’s blood, and like a miniature hypodermic needle, suck out blood to aid in egg production[1]
To increase the critical buckling load, the mosquito reduces the effective length of its fascicles by using a second structure, the labium, as an insertion guide (Fig. 1, left)[2,4]
To prevent fascicle buckling during insertion, the critical load must be higher than the penetration load
Summary
To increase the critical buckling load, the mosquito reduces the effective length of its fascicles by using a second structure, the labium, as an insertion guide (Fig. 1, left)[2,4]. Through the use of the labium, the mosquito effectively reduces the length of the load bearing portion of the fascicle, enabling insertion of the higher aspect ratio needles, where the needles would not otherwise have been able to penetrate the skin Intrigued by this capability, and with the goal of creating a new system for the implantation of ultra-small, flexible microelectrode devices into the brain, we set out to investigate whether a biomimetic strategy would enable an effective insertion guide approach (Fig. 1, right). While this is a great improvement, it should be noted that the mosquito achieves much higher insertion efficiency by using a multimodal delivery system including: 1) barbed maxillae integrated in their labrum that oppositely reciprocate and saw open the skin and break the surface tension2,4, 2) an oscillatory insertion motion that results in a time-dependent shear thinning of the skin[3], and 3) a follower-force applied by the labrum that further optimizes
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