A Pilot In Vivo Study of Flexible Fully Polymeric Nerve Cuff Electrodes.

Abstract

Recent trends in the field of bioelectronics have been focused on the development of electrodes that facilitate safe and efficient stimulation of nervous tissues. Novel conducting polymer (CP) based materials, such as flexible and fully polymeric conductive elastomers (CEs), constitute a promising alternative to improve on the limitations of current metallic devices. This pilot study demonstrates the performance of tripolar CE-based peripheral nerve cuffs compared to current commercial tripolar platinum-iridium (PtIr) nerve cuffs in vivo. CE and metallic cuff devices were implanted onto rodent sciatic nerves for a period of 8 weeks. Throughout the entire study, the CE device demonstrated improved charge transfer and electrochemical safety compared to the PtIr cuff, able to safely inject 2 to 3 times more charge. In comparison to the commercial control, the CE cuff was able to record in the in vivo setting with reduced noise and produced smaller voltages at all simulation levels. CE technologies provide a promising alternative to metallic devices for the development of bioelectronics with enhanced chronic device functionality.