Sirma Orguc | Bioelectronics at MIT

Multifunctional microelectronic fibers enable wireless modulation of gut and brain neural circuits

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Unraveling connections between the brain and gut

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The brain and the digestive tract are in constant communication, relaying signals that help to control feeding and other behaviors. This extensive communication network also influences our mental state and has been implicated in many neurological disorders.

MIT engineers have designed a new technology for probing those connections. Using fibers embedded with a variety of sensors, as well as light sources for optogenetic stimulation, the researchers have shown that they can control neural circuits connecting the gut and the brain, in mice.

In a new study, the researchers demonstrated that they could induce feelings of fullness or reward-seeking behavior in mice by manipulating cells of the intestine. In future work, they hope to explore some of the correlations that have been observed between digestive health and neurological conditions such as autism and Parkinson’s disease.

“The exciting thing here is that we now have technology that can drive gut function and behaviors such as feeding. More importantly, we have the ability to start accessing the crosstalk between the gut and the brain with the millisecond precision of optogenetics, and we can do it in behaving animals,” says Polina Anikeeva, the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences, director of the K. Lisa Yang Brain-Body Center, associate director of MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics, and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Anikeeva is the senior author of the new study, which appears today in Nature Biotechnology. The paper’s lead authors are MIT graduate student Atharva Sahasrabudhe, Duke University postdoc Laura Rupprecht, MIT postdoc Sirma Orguc, and former MIT postdoc Tural Khudiyev.

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Artificial Muscle

Fri, 12 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Strain-programmable fiber-based artificial muscle

Fri, 12 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Artificial Muscles

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

MIT researchers, including professors Polina Anikeeva, Yoel Fink, and Cem Tasan, have developed a new fiber-based system that could be used as artificial muscles for robots, prosthetic limbs, or other mechanical and biomedical applications. Inspired by cucumber plants, which use their tightly-coiled tendrils to pull the plants upwards, this system utilizes a heat-activated coiling-and-pulling mechanism. Two materials that have different rates of thermal expansion are joined, causing the resulting fiber to form a tight coil with a surprisingly strong pulling force when even a small increase in temperature is applied. This process of contracting and expanding was shown in testing to maintain its strength even after repeating 10,000 times.

These fibers can span a wide range of sizes, and can easily be manufactured in batches up to hundreds of meters long. They are extremely lightweight and can respond quickly. Such fibers could be useful as actuators in robotic arms, legs, or grippers, as well as in prosthetic limbs, although postdoc Mehmet Kanik says that the possibilities for materials of this type are virtually limitless.

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