Harnessing the 2D structure-enabled viscoelasticity of graphene-based hydrogel membranes for chronic neural interfacing
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Stiffness and viscoelasticity of neural implants regulate the foreign body response. Recent studies have suggested the use of elastic or viscoelastic materials with tissue-like stiffness for long-term neural electrical interfacing. Herein, the authors find that a viscoelastic multilayered graphene hydrogel (MGH) membrane, despite exhibiting a much higher Young's modulus than nerve tissues, shows little inflammatory response after 8-week implantation in rat sciatic nerves. The MGH membrane shows significant viscoelasticity due to the slippage between graphene nanosheets, facilitating its seamless yet minimally compressive interfacing with nerves to reduce the inflammation caused by the stiffness mismatch. When used as neural stimulation electrodes, the MGH membrane can offer abundant ion-accessible surfaces to bring a charge injection capacity 1–2 orders of magnitude higher than its traditional Pt counterpart, and further demonstrates chronic neural therapy potential in low-voltage modulation of rat blood pressure. This work suggests that the emergence of 2D nanomaterials and particularly their unique structural attributes can be harnessed to enable new bio-interfacing design strategies.
Date Issued
2022-05-18
Date Acceptance
2022-02-20
Citation
small methods, 2022, 6 (5)
ISSN
2366-9608
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
small methods
Volume
6
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Authors. Small Methods published by Wiley-VCH GmbH
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000766016400001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
Chemistry
Chemistry, Physical
CUFF ELECTRODE
ELECTRICAL-STIMULATION
FILMS
graphene
HUMAN RETINA
hydrogels
in vivo imaging
Materials Science
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
MICROELECTRODE ARRAY
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
NERVE
neural interfaces
NEXT-GENERATION
PERCEPTUAL THRESHOLDS
Physical Sciences
Science & Technology
Science & Technology - Other Topics
SOFT
Technology
viscoelasticity
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
2200022
Date Publish Online
2022-03-08