Abstract
The development of therapeutic approaches to improve the life quality of people suffering from different types of body paralysis is a current major medical challenge. Brain-machine interface (BMI) can potentially help reestablishing lost sensory and motor functions, allowing patients to use their own brain activity to restore sensorimotor control of paralyzed body parts. Chronic implants of multielectrodes, employed to record neural activity directly from the brain parenchyma, constitute the fundamental component of a BMI. However, before this technique may be effectively available to human clinical trials, it is essential to characterize its long-term impact on the nervous tissue in animal models. In the present study we evaluated how chronic implanted tungsten microelectrode arrays impact the distribution and morphology of interneurons reactive to calcium-binding proteins calbindin (CB), calretinin (CR) and parvalbumin (PV) across the rat’s motor cortex. Our results revealed that chronic microelectrode arrays were well tolerated by the nervous tissue, with recordings remaining viable for up to 6 months after implantation. Furthermore, neither the morphology nor the distribution of inhibitory neurons were broadly impacted. Moreover, restricted microglial activation was observed on the implanted sites. On the whole, our results confirm and expand the notion that tungsten multielectrodes can be deemed as a feasible candidate to future human BMI studies.
Highlights
Neuropathological conditions, such as brain and spinal cord injuries, are currently the leading causes of disabilities worldwide, affecting severely the life of its sufferers [1,2,3,4,5] and imposing a significant socioeconomic burden to the health care system [6,7]
We evaluated some aspects concerning the temporal variation of electrophysiological signals in function of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) obtained during chronic cortical recordings, comparing data from first and last week of recording in all time points analyzed (1, 3 and 6 months of implantation)
During the last years a considerable progress has been achieved on Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) technology
Summary
Neuropathological conditions, such as brain and spinal cord injuries, are currently the leading causes of disabilities worldwide, affecting severely the life of its sufferers [1,2,3,4,5] and imposing a significant socioeconomic burden to the health care system [6,7]. Before microwire arrays can be effectively available to human clinical trials, it is necessary to characterize their impact on the nervous tissue in animal models, in the cortex In this prospect, investigation becomes even more relevant when considering that one of the most essential prerequisite for any invasive BMI is its capability to remains functional through many years after the surgery for implantation of recording probes. Investigation becomes even more relevant when considering that one of the most essential prerequisite for any invasive BMI is its capability to remains functional through many years after the surgery for implantation of recording probes Such longevity should maximize both the recording of stable high quality action potentials from hundreds to thousands of neurons and the preservation of the tissue surrounding the implant. This latter goal is critical if one intends to avoid structural and physiological alterations of brain tissue that could compromise the device’s performance and further complicate the patient’s neurological state
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