Abstract
Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) have proven to be a powerful tool to study electrophysiological processes over the last decades with most technology developed for investigation of the heart or brain. Other targets in the field of bioelectronic medicine are the peripheral nervous system and its innervation of various organs. Beyond the heart and nervous systems, the beta cells of the pancreatic islets of Langerhans generate action potentials during the production of insulin. In vitro experiments have demonstrated that their activity is a biomarker for blood glucose levels, suggesting that recording their activity in vivo could support patients suffering from diabetes mellitus with long-term automated read-out of blood glucose concentrations. Here, we present a flexible polymer-based implant having 64 low impedance microelectrodes designed to be implanted to a depth of 10 mm into the pancreas. As a first step, the implant will be used in acute experiments in pigs to explore the electrophysiological processes of the pancreas in vivo. Beyond use in the pancreas, our flexible implant and simple implantation method may also be used in other organs such as the brain.
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The apparent gender of Omnetics Nano Strip connectors is misleading.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Ilona Matiychyn (Multi Channel Systems MCS GmbH) for her expertise with PEG-assisted implantation of flexible devices and Helen Steins and Simon Werner for their expertise with assembly of the connectors.
Funding
This work was financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the project PanaMEA (grant 13GW0397D). This work received financial support from the State Ministry of Baden-Wuerttemberg for Economic Affairs, Labour and Tourism. The PanaMEA project builds on the results of the “innBW Implant” project (7-4332-NMI/49), which was funded by the Ministry of Finance of Baden-Württemberg (MFW).
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D.P. and P.D.J. analyzed results and wrote the manuscript with input from all authors. M.T.: histology. D.P., L.B., R.D., U.K., P.D.J.: conceived and designed the implants and implant–shuttle assembly. A.S.: device fabrication. R.D. and D.P.: implantation. D.P.: impedance measurements. M.K.: Electron microscopy and FIB. A.K., J.R., U.K., P.F.J.: supervision and project administration. All authors reviewed the manuscript and approved its final version.
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Pascual, D., Brauns, L., Domes, R. et al. A flexible implant for acute intrapancreatic electrophysiology. Biomed Microdevices 25, 35 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-023-00662-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-023-00662-2