Organic electronics circuitry for in situ real-time processing of electrophysiological signals

Abstract

The next generation of brain-machine interfaces are envisioned to couple signal transduction, filtering, and sorting on board with minimum power consumption and maximum bio-integrability. These functional needs shall be mandatorily met in order to design efficient closed-loop brain-machine interfaces aimed at treating and monitoring various disorders of the central and peripheral nervous system. Here, we highlight the pivotal role organic bioelectronics may have in the contextual development of all these three desiderata, by demonstrating a modular organic-electronics circuit towards real-time signal filtering. The inherent filtering capabilities of electrolyte-gated organic transistor are tuned via adjustment of operational conditions and benchmarked in an electromyography experiment. Additionally, a whole-organic signal processing circuitry is presented, coupling such transistors with ad hoc designed organic passive components. This provides the possibility to sort complex signals into their constitutive frequency components in real time, thereby delineating innovative strategies to devise organic-based functional building-blocks for brain-machine interfaces.