Siyuan Rao | Bioelectronics at MIT

Fatigue-resistant hydrogel optical fibers enable peripheral nerve optogenetics during locomotion

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Soft optical fibers block pain while moving and stretching with the body

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Scientists have a new tool to precisely illuminate the roots of nerve pain.

Engineers at MIT have developed soft and implantable fibers that can deliver light to major nerves through the body. When these nerves are genetically manipulated to respond to light, the fibers can send pulses of light to the nerves to inhibit pain. The optical fibers are flexible and stretch with the body.

The new fibers are meant as an experimental tool that can be used by scientists to explore the causes and potential treatments for peripheral nerve disorders in animal models. Peripheral nerve pain can occur when nerves outside the brain and spinal cord are damaged, resulting in tingling, numbness, and pain in affected limbs. Peripheral neuropathy is estimated to affect more than 20 million people in the United States.

“Current devices used to study nerve disorders are made of stiff materials that constrain movement, so that we can’t really study spinal cord injury and recovery if pain is involved,” says Siyuan Rao, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who carried out part of the work as a postdoc at MIT. “Our fibers can adapt to natural motion and do their work while not limiting the motion of the subject. That can give us more precise information.”

“Now, people have a tool to study the diseases related to the peripheral nervous system, in very dynamic, natural, and unconstrained conditions,” adds Xinyue Liu PhD ’22, who is now an assistant professor at Michigan State University (MSU).

Details of their team’s new fibers are reported today (Nat. Methods) in a study appearing in Nature Methods. Rao’s and Liu’s MIT co-authors include Atharva Sahasrabudhe, a graduate student in chemistry; Xuanhe Zhao, professor of mechanical engineering and civil and environmental engineering; and Polina Anikeeva, professor of materials science and engineering, along with others at MSU, UMass-Amherst, Harvard Medical School, and the National Institutes of Health.

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Magnetothermal Multiplexing for Selective Remote Control of Cell Signaling

Fri, 10 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Gaseous Messenger Molecule

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Nitric oxide is an important signaling molecule in the body, with a role in building nervous system connections that contribute to learning and memory. It also functions as a messenger in the cardiovascular and immune systems.

But it has been difficult for researchers to study exactly what its role is in these systems and how it functions. Because it is a gas, there has been no practical way to direct it to specific individual cells in order to observe its effects. Now, a team of scientists and engineers at MIT and elsewhere has found a way of generating the gas at precisely targeted locations inside the body, potentially opening new lines of research on this essential molecule’s effects.

The findings are reported today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, in a paper by MIT professors Polina Anikeeva, Karthish Manthiram, and Yoel Fink; graduate student Jimin Park; postdoc Kyoungsuk Jin; and 10 others at MIT and in Taiwan, Japan, and Israel.

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In situ electrochemical generation of nitric oxide for neuronal modulation

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Functionally Distinct Neuronal Ensembles within the Memory Engram

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Remotely controlled chemomagnetic modulation of targeted neural circuits

Mon, 19 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Flexible and stretchable nanowire-coated fibers for optoelectronic probing of spinal cord circuits

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000