Neurophotonics

We are pursuing a novel paradigm for functional optical imaging that circumvents the short optical penetration depths in brain tissue that severely limit all free-space optical methods. It permits functional imaging with cellular resolution in highly scattering brain tissue, enables complete coverage of all neurons within a target volume, and has long- term prospects for human applications. Our approach, which we term integrated neurophotonics, is based on implanting and distributing a dense 3-D lattice of emitter and detector pixels within the brain itself. These pixel arrays are embedded onto neurophotonic probes, realized as implantable, ultra-narrow shanks that leverage recent advances in both integrated nanophotonics and our silicon multi-site neural probes for electrophysiology.

Neuromolecular Sensing

New approaches from nanoscience offer transformational capabilities for understanding spatiotemporal neurochemical activity. Group activities focus on quantiative, real-time detection of both small (neuromodulaotrs) and large (proteins) molecules in the brain.

Microfluidic Neural Probes

Neural probes with embedded microfluidic channels are being designed and optimized for localized neural drug delivery.