Electrosynthetically patterned conducting polymer films for investigation of neural signaling

Abstract

The ion-mediated conduction and versatility of device fabrication of conducting polymers provide a route to the study of neural signaling. Patterned junctions of conducting polypyrrole have been electropolymerized on commercially available microelectrode arrays, with typical dimensions 200 m between electrodes, each electrode being 30 m in diameter. Tetrabutylammonium perchlorate or sodium p-toluenesulfonate were used as electrolyte/counterion in the organic solvent. Individual polypyrrole junctions, when synthesized and connected in a three-electrode configuration, exhibit current-switching behavior analogous to neural weighting. Junctions copolymerized with thiophene exhibit current rectification and the nonlinear current-voltage behavior requisite for complex neural systems ͑i.e., the activation function͒.

Electrical Stimulation in Tissue Regeneration

“…One-and 2-µm-wide PPy microchannels were fabricated using patterning technology . Commercially available patterned junctions of conducting PPy have microelectrode arrays displaying typical dimensions of 200 µm between the electrodes, with each electrode measuring 30 µm in diameter (Simon & Carter, 2006). A low impedance electrode/tissue interface is important to signal transfer quality.…”

3D printing hydrogel scaffold and functional hydrogel for tissue engineering application

“…Bioelectrical phenomena is widely found in human tissues and cells, such as neural, cardiac, bone and cornea etc. [57,67,163,164,166,169,180,185], and it plays an essential role in cell signaling, cellular growth guiding and neo-tissue deposition [164,165,171,179]. What is more, most of these tissues require the delivery and participation of growth factors, drugs, enzymes, antibodies, nucleic acids etc.…”

“…Conventional PEGDA hydrogel scaffold do not support optimal cell adhesion, transit electrical signal or deliver drug/particles [212]. As a result, a large family of electric-dependent cells such as neuron cells and osteoblasts has been found to grow unfavorably in the PEGDA hydrogel scaffold [170,175,180,213]. This has become a major challenge for PEGDA scaffold tissue engineering application.…”