Research on neural interfaces has historically concentrated on development of systems for the brain; however, there is increasing interest in peripheral nerve interfaces (PNIs) that could provide ...benefit when peripheral nerve function is compromised, such as for amputees. Efforts focus on designing scalable and high‐performance sensory and motor peripheral nervous system interfaces. Current PNIs face several design challenges such as undersampling of signals from the thousands of axons, nerve‐fiber selectivity, and device–tissue integration. To improve PNIs, several researchers have turned to tissue engineering. Peripheral nerve tissue engineering has focused on designing regeneration scaffolds that mimic normal nerve extracellular matrix composition, provide advanced microarchitecture to stimulate cell migration, and have mechanical properties like the native nerve. By combining PNIs with tissue engineering, the goal is to promote natural axon regeneration into the devices to facilitate close contact with electrodes; in contrast, traditional PNIs rely on insertion or placement of electrodes into or around existing nerves, or do not utilize materials to actively facilitate axon regeneration. This review presents the state‐of‐the‐art of PNIs and nerve tissue engineering, highlights recent approaches to combine neural‐interface technology and tissue engineering, and addresses the remaining challenges with foreign‐body response.
Peripheral nerve interfaces (PNIs) as part of advanced prosthetic devices allow for communication between the device and nerves by providing motor control and sensory feedback. To improve PNIs, researchers have turned to tissue engineering. This review presents the state‐of‐the‐art of PNIs and nerve tissue engineering, highlights recent approaches to combine neural‐interface technology and tissue engineering, and addresses the remaining challenges.
In article number 1701713, Kevin J. Otto, Jack W. Judy, Christine E. Schmidt and co‐workers review the latest in peripheral nerve interfaces, peripheral nerve tissue engineering, and the intersection ...of these fields to create regenerative peripheral nerve interfaces. With these devices, axons regenerate into a hydrogel‐like environment that allows them to intimately interface with electrodes. This technology could ultimately be used to control robotic prostheses.
In this study, we describe a novel peripheral-nerve interface which makes use of highly flexible multi-electrode arrays that are integrated into hydrogel-based scaffolds to form a hybrid ...tissue-engineered electronic construct. This tissue-engineered electronic nerve interface (TEENI) is designed to be scalable to high channel counts using multiple polyimide-based "threads" that are evenly distributed through a volume of the nerve equal to its diameter times the distance between one or more nodes of Ranvier. Such scalability could greatly increase the precision and resolution of motor-control and sensory-feedback signals exchanged between amputees and advanced upper-limb prosthetic devices.
Regenerative peripheral-nerve interfaces are a novel method for integrating with the peripheral nervous system. These devices have the potential to isolate and transduce both afferent (sensory) and ...efferent (motor) neural signals to produce fine control of advanced prosthetics. We have developed a novel regenerative device comprised of microfabricated polyimide electrode threads supported by a hydrogel scaffold containing methacrylated hyaluronic acid, collagen I, and laminin to enable intimate contact with regenerating axons. While this advanced device holds theoretical promise for establishing a stable chronic neural interface, it also requires a novel surgical approach in comparison to current existing methods of peripheral neural interface technologies. Here we describe the development of the surgical methodology required for successful chronic implantation of the TEENI device in the rat sciatic nerve.
Neural-interface devices have the potential to isolate and transduce both afferent (sensory) and efferent (motor) neural signals of the peripheral nerve to and from electrical signals in ...instrumentation for stimulation and recording to produce fine control of advanced prosthetics. In order to potentiate the full spectrum of possible applications, the persistent foreign-body response needs to be addressed. Here we describe the cellular and extracellular components of chronically implanted polyimide threads suspended within a tricomponent hydrogel. The results of these experiments will contribute to design modifications for future fabrications of tissue-engineered-electronic-nerve-interface (TEENI) devices.
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