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Implanted electronic system with radio link for recording neural activity of the brain: NEURO-IC ll

English title Implanted electronic system with radio link for recording neural activity of the brain: NEURO-IC ll
Applicant Dehollain Catherine
Number 122082
Funding scheme Project funding
Research institution Laboratoire d'électronique générale 1 EPFL - STI - IMM - LEG1
Institution of higher education EPF Lausanne - EPFL
Main discipline Microelectronics. Optoelectronics
Start/End 01.01.2009 - 31.08.2011
Approved amount 293'649.00
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Keywords (11)

biological-microelectronics interface; microelectronics; RF integrated circuits; automatic regulation of the RF power; repartioning; reconfigurability of integrated microelectronics; Cortical electronic implant; bioelectronic interface; remotely powered implanted integrated circuit; downlink communication; uplink communication

Lay Summary (English)

Lead
Lay summary
Neural scientists and medical doctors need increasingly more sophisticated, advanced scientific solutions to monitor and study brain activity as well as to assist patients suffering from degenerative brain diseases or to aid limbs amputees. Electronic systems can fulfill these needs under the conditions that the interface between the outside world and the brain be able to provide reliable and safe communication. The goal is to explore and to design a complete RF link system that allows brain activity to be recorded in vivo. Ultimately, this research will lead into the development of a systematic methodology enabling the study and determination of the optimal characteristics of an implanted system, for a given number of channels and the biological characteristics of the person (e.g. age, gender, health status, etc). This research is expected to allow the implantation of complex systems, exhibiting increased analog, RF and digital performances.

The main challenges will be the following at system level, modelization level and building blocks level:
• Propose a systematic development methodology based on a system-level study and modelization, and a fixed power and data rate Rx/Tx system.
• Develop an adaptive power limitation system for analog, RF and digital portions of the implanted system. We propose to tackle this issue from a perspective of adapting power transmitted to the implanted system to its actual needs, and reconfiguring/repartitioning the digital system into the optimal power vs. performance trade-off.
• Develop adaptive system architectures with the ability to trade the algorithmic complexity for limited thermal power dissipation by on-the-fly architectural repartitioning and reconfiguring.
• Develop solutions to the on-chip hardware integration of large number of cortical readout channels. The need to increase the number of channel requires the development of original techniques to guarantee the integrity of acquired signals, in a noisy environment.
• Study solutions to long-term power supply of implanted systems based on wireless transmission of power. Original solutions must be provided to the issues related to power and data transmission in the case of safety critical bio-electronic systems.

NEURO-IC has started in January 2007 as a collaborative work between the Electronics Laboratory of EPFL (LEG1) and the Microelectronics System of EPFL (LSM), carrying out research at PhD level. Funding of NEURO-IC has been granted for phase 1 of the project in years 2007 and 2008, covering two years of research. Phase 2 of the project will cover the completion of the project as NEURO-IC II, which will extend over the years 2009 and 2010.
Direct link to Lay Summary Last update: 21.02.2013

Responsible applicant and co-applicants

Employees

Publications

Publication
Energy Efficient Low-Noise Neural Recording Amplifier with Enhanced Noise Efficiency Factor
Majidzadeh Vahid, Schmid Alexandre, Leblebici Yuusf (2011), Energy Efficient Low-Noise Neural Recording Amplifier with Enhanced Noise Efficiency Factor, in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, 5(3), 262-271.
Numerical thermal analysis of a wireless cortical implant with two-body packaging
Silay Kanber Mithat, Dehollain Catherine, Declercq Michel (2011), Numerical thermal analysis of a wireless cortical implant with two-body packaging, in Springer Journal of BionanoScience, 1(2), 78-88.
Inductive power link for a wireless cortical implant with two-body packaging
Silay Kanber Mithat, Dehollain Catherine, Declercq Michel, Inductive power link for a wireless cortical implant with two-body packaging, in IEEE Sensor Journal, Not yet defined(Not yet de).

Associated projects

Number Title Start Funding scheme
127547 Innovative Enabling Micro-Nano-Bio-technologies for Implantable systems in molecular medicine and personalized therapy 01.01.2010 Sinergia
113883 Implanted electronic system with radio link for recording neural activity of the brain: NEURO-IC 01.01.2007 Project funding

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