It is made of silicon that is doped in such a way that it contains EOSFETs (electrolyte-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors) that can sense the electrical activity of the neurons (action potentials) in the above-standing physiological electrolyte solution.
Developed with the National Research Council Canada (NRC), the new silicon chips are also simpler to use, which will help future understanding of how brain cells work under normal conditions and permit drug discoveries for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
The new technology from the lab of Naweed Syed, in collaboration with the NRC, was published online in August 2010, in the journal Biomedical Devices.
[3] "This technical breakthrough means we can track subtle changes in brain activity at the level of ion channels and synaptic potentials, which are also the most suitable target sites for drug development in neurodegenerative diseases and neuropsychological disorders," says Syed, professor and head of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and advisor to the Vice President Research on Biomedical Engineering Initiative of the University of Chicago.
Gerald Zamponi, professor and head of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, and member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, says, “This technology can likely be scaled up such that it will become a novel tool for medium throughput drug screening, in addition to its usefulness for basic biomedical research”.