About this Research Topic
Neural interfacing systems have significantly benefited from recent advancements in technologies for safe communication pathways with the external world. The acquired data from central and peripheral nervous system is interpreted to provide meaningful behavior patterns, variety of sensing feedbacks, or to monitor restoration of motor and sensory functions in patients.
Conventional neural interfaces such as ECoG recording, Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), or sciatic nerve recording/stimulation, typically rely on the hard-wired connection from the electrode. The more recent types of neural interfaces have been developed to provide wireless interfaces from the animal’s body to the external station allowing extended experimental periods and enriched environments in variety of assistive and rehabilitative approaches. These systems’ architecture typically includes small, wireless (power & data), central, and rigid implants forming a large network including signal processing.
While many have attempted to record or stimulate wirelessly from multi-channel electrodes, previous schemes were limited to a very small area of central or peripheral nervous system. This is because traditionally these architectures are based on a single or small number of high-density microelectrode arrays, tethered to large implanted electronics device. Instead of a single, large, and centralized implant, an important number of miniaturized wireless implants distributed inside the central and peripheral nervous system, can provide highly customized modes of assistance and support people with physical and physiological disabilities.
The state-of-art miniaturized implants have been designed in several mm3 device sizes with only one or few electrodes, μW to mW power consumptions, and tens of mg weight for freely-behaving animal subjects while the conventional centralized implants have several cm3 device sizes with multiple electrode array, tens of mW power consumptions, and a few gram weight. Although many mm-size implants have been mainly developed for optogenetic stimulators due to its simpler architecture than recording function, the mm-sized implants equipped with recording capability are also widely studied. These miniaturized distributed neural interfaces can be applicable to assistive/rehabilitative approaches with direct control of the patient’s bio-signals through recording and stimulation capabilities, and eventually provide intelligent, objective user-sensing for various applications such as neural prosthesis, smart healthcare, and brain-computer interface (BCI).
The goal of this Research Topic is to cover the related technologies and experimental results for miniaturized wireless neural interface in the field of for biomedical application. Manuscripts submitted to this Research Topic can include, but are not limited to, emerging technologies relevant with miniaturized wireless neural interface system for artificial sensory feedback and assistive/rehabilitative techniques for the people with disability such as:
• Miniaturized neural interfaces system for artificial sensory feedback applications
• Signal processing techniques in distributed implants for assistive/rehabilitative approaches
• Wireless power/data techniques for miniaturized distributed implants
• Related applications of miniaturized distributed implants
Keywords: Neural Interfaces, Artificial Sensory Feedback, Signal Processing, Miniaturized Implants, Rehabilitation
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