Open Collections

Improvement of longevity and signal quality in implantable neural recording systems

University of British Columbia

Application of neural prostheses in today's medicine successfully helps patients to increase their activities of daily life and participate in social activities again. These implantable microsystems provide an interface to the nervous system, giving cellular resolution to physiological processes unattainable today with non-invasive methods. The latest developments in genetic engineering, nanotechnologies and materials science have paved the way for these complex systems to interface the human nervous system. The ideal system for neural signal recording would be a fully implantable device which is capable of amplifying the neural signals and transmitting them to the outside world while sustaining a long-term and accurate performance, therefore different sciences from neurosciences, biology, electrical engineering and computer science have to interact and discuss the synergies to develop a practical system which can be used in daily medicine practice. This work investigates the main building blocks necessary to improve the quality of acquired signal from the micro-electronics and MEMS perspectives. While all of these components will be ultimately embedded in a fully implantable recording probe, each of them addresses and deals with a specific obstacle in the neural signal recording path. Specifically we present a low-voltage low-noise low-power CMOS amplifier particularly designed for neural recording applications. This is done by surveying a number of designs and evaluating each design against the requirements for a neural recording system such as power dissipation and noise, and then choosing the most suitable topology for design and implementation of a fully implantable system. In addition a surface modification method is investigated to improve the sacrificial properties and biocompatibility of probe in order to extend the implant life and enhance the signal quality.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2008-10-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/2650

Electrical and Computer Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/