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Engineered NanoDiamond particles for imaging neural activity

Antonina Monaco1, Jaroslaw Motylewski1, Shashi Kanth Reddy Singam2, Etienne Goovaerts2 and Michele Giugliano1, 3, 4*
  • 1 University of Antwerp, Theoretical Neurobiology and Neuroengineering Laboratory, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences, Belgium
  • 2 University of Antwerp, Department of Physics, Belgium
  • 3 Brain Mind Institute, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 4 University of Sheffield, Dept. Computer Science, United Kingdom

Nowadays, the gap between material sciences and biology has become more and more narrow, thus enabling substantial progress within interdisciplinary approaches. One of the most fruitful results of this new approach is the use of carbon-based nanomaterials in biological and biomedical sciences, where they found use as nanostructured substrates for cellular growth and regeneration, as labels for cellular imaging and as nanoscale electrodes (Chang et al., 2008; Cellot et al., 2009; Li et al., 2013; Monaco and Giugliano, 2014; Tang-Schomer et al., 2014). These applications, however, though improving stimulation and recording conditions in terms of a reduced Signal/Noise ratio, find limitation in their invasive character, as well as in their spatial and temporal resolution. This calls for the development of non-invasive techniques, which allow localizing brain structures on the order of micrometres and measuring neural function on a temporal scale of few milliseconds. To this purpose, we are exploring the use of Nitrogen Vacancy Nanodiamonds (NV-NDs) to image single cell and network-level activity to directly evaluate the local electromagnetic fields generated by neuronal activity by means of spin sensitive photon detection (Hall et al., 2012). These NV-NDs, in fact, are one of the most powerful sensors of magnetic field, thanks to the high sensitivity of their electron spin states to light and to magnetic field. This aspect, combined with the already proven high biocompatibility of nanodiamonds, makes NV-NDs promising candidates to be used as nanoscopic magnetic sensors of spin labels.

References

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Hall, L.T., Beart, G.C., Thomas, E.A., Simpson, D.A., Mcguinness, L.P., Cole, J.H., Manton, J.H., Scholten, R.E., Jelezko, F., Wrachtrup, J., Petrou, S., and Hollenberg, L.C. (2012). High spatial and temporal resolution wide-field imaging of neuron activity using quantum NV-diamond. Sci Rep 2, 401. doi: 10.1038/srep00401.

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Monaco, A.M., and Giugliano, M. (2014). Carbon-based smart nanomaterials in biomedicine and neuroengineering. Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology 5, 1849-1863. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.5.196.

Tang-Schomer, M.D., White, J.D., Tien, L.W., Schmitt, L.I., Valentin, T.M., Graziano, D.J., Hopkins, A.M., Omenetto, F.G., Haydon, P.G., and Kaplan, D.L. (2014). Bioengineered functional brain-like cortical tissue. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 111, 13811-13816. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1324214111.

Keywords: Nitrogen Vacancy Nanodiamonds, Neuronal activity, neuronal imaging, Neural electromagnetic field, primary neuronal culture

Conference: 11th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience, Mons, Belgium, 22 May - 22 May, 2015.

Presentation Type: Poster presentation

Topic: Neuroscience

Citation: Monaco A, Motylewski J, Singam S, Goovaerts E and Giugliano M (2015). Engineered NanoDiamond particles for imaging neural activity. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: 11th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2015.89.00079

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Received: 30 Apr 2015; Published Online: 05 May 2015.

* Correspondence: Prof. Michele Giugliano, University of Antwerp, Theoretical Neurobiology and Neuroengineering Laboratory, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences, Wilrijk, Belgium, michele.giugliano@uantwerpen.be