Flexible Electronics to Aid Brain Research

U.S. engineers have created flexible electronic membranes that are designed to help brain researchers replicate injuries in the lab.

Developed by a team of engineers from Princeton University, Columbia University and the University of Cambridge, the membranes feature microelectrodes that are able to withstand the sudden stretching that is used to simulate severe head trauma.

The researchers said the systems could allow far more nuanced studies of brain injury than previously possible and might lead to better treatments immediately following such injuries. The work also has implications for other areas of medicine, including prosthetics, as well as many industry and military applications.

This is an immediate application of the electronics of the future, said Princeton Professor Sigurd Wagner, who, along with former Princeton postdoctoral researcher Stephanie Lacour, is part of a National Institutes of Health-funded project to develop flexible arrays of microelectrodes for brain research.

Led by Barclay Morrison III, an assistant biomedical engineering professor at Columbia, members of the team is to present their work during the spring meeting of the Materials Research Society.