Single flexible fiber implant records, stimulates, delivers drugs — SkimNews
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- Researchers from DTU, the University of Copenhagen, and University College London developed the microfluidic Axialtrode (mAxialtrode), a flexible fiber implant less than half a millimeter across that combines a light-conducting core, eight microfluidic channels for drug delivery, and thin metal wires for electrical recording.
- The mAxialtrode can record neural activity, deliver medication, and stimulate multiple brain regions simultaneously, unlike conventional flat-ended optical fibers that interact with brain tissue only at a single distal tip.
- Postdoc Kunyang Sui and Associate Professor Christos Markos designed the implant with a soft, polymer construction and angled tip to reduce tissue damage and inflammation compared with hard silicon devices, though Sui cautioned it remains far from routine clinical use.
- In vivo tests in mice showed the fiber could stimulate neurons with blue and red light, record electrical activity across the cerebral cortex and hippocampus, and inject different substances at depths nearly three millimeters apart, with mice showing no obvious discomfort.
- Associate Professors Rune W. Berg (University of Copenhagen) and Rob C. Wykes (UCL) contributed epilepsy-relevant neural-circuit analysis to the validation experiments.
- The findings were published in Advanced Science (DOI: 10.1002/advs.202519744), and the team is now pursuing a patent while exploring requirements for eventual clinical testing.
Why it matters: Researchers studying epilepsy, memory, and decision-making currently rely on separate optical fibers, electrodes, and drug-delivery tools; a single sub-half-millimeter implant that combines all three means fewer penetrations into brain tissue during long experiments, while its soft polymer build is designed to cut the inflammation that rigid silicon probes trigger.
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