BME Seminar Series: Liang Guo, PhD, Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Dr. Guo will be present "Stretchable Neural Interfaces and Future Directions"

Abstract:

Numerous applications in neuroscience research and neural prosthetics, such as retinal prostheses, spinal-cord surface stimulation for prosthetics and electrocorticogram (ECoG) recording for epilepsy detection, involve electrical interaction with soft excitable tissues using a surface stimulation and/or recording approach. These applications require an interface that is able to set up electrical communications with a high throughput between electronics and the excitable tissue and that can dynamically conform to the shape of the soft tissue. Being a compliant and biocompatible material with mechanical impedance close to those of soft tissues, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) offers excellent potential as the substrate material for such neural interfaces. However, fabrication of electrical functionalities on PDMS has long been very challenging.

My talk will focus on the development of PDMS-based stretchable neural interfaces and their application as an epimysial (i.e., on the surface of muscle) interface to neural prosthetics and theragnosis. I will also cover possible future directions toward more efficient neural interfacing technologies.

Biography:

Dr. Guo received the B.E. degree in biomedical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing in 2004 and the Ph.D. degree in bioengineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA in 2011. His Ph.D. research with Professor Stephen P. DeWeerth focused on the development of high-density stretchable microelectrode arrays for neural and muscular surface interfacing. He worked with Professors Robert S. Langer and Daniel G. Anderson at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA as a postdoctoral scholar in neural tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He started as an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Neuroscience in September 2013 at the Ohio State University. His primary research interests are in neural interfacing technology and biological circuits engineering as applied to neuroscience and neural prosthetics.