Realizing flexible bioelectronic medicines for accessing the peripheral nerves – technology considerations

Bioelectronic Medicine

Vasiliki Giagka¹  Wouter A. Serdijn² 

[1] Section Bioelectronics, Department of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands;Technologies for Bioelectronics Group, Department of System Integration and Interconnection Technologies, Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, Berlin, Germany

DOI  :  10.1186/s42234-018-0010-y

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: BioMed Central

【 摘 要 】

Patients suffering from conditions such as paralysis, diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis could in the future be treated in a personalised manner using bioelectronic medicines (BEms) (Nat Rev Drug Discov 13:399–400, 2013, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 113:8284–9, 2016, J Intern Med 282:37–45, 2017). To deliver this personalised therapy based on electricity, BEms need to target various sites in the human body and operate in a closed-loop manner. The specific conditions and anatomy of the targeted sites pose unique challenges in the development of BEms. With a focus on BEms based on flexible substrates for accessing small peripheral nerves, this paper discusses several system-level technology considerations related to the development of such devices. The focus is mainly on miniaturisation and long-term operation. We present an overview of common substrate and electrode materials, related processing methods, and discuss assembly, miniaturisation and long-term stability issues.

【 授权许可】

CC BY