A New Flexible PCB Connector for a Tissue-engineered Electronic Nerve Interface Angel Gatev Authors: Angel Gatev, Ladan Jiracek-Sapieha Gocman, Jack Judy Faculty Mentor: Kevin Otto, PhD College: College of Engineering Department: Biomedical Engineering |
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AbstractThe ongoing development of peripheral nerve interface technology faces many obstacles on the road to safe and effective use for medical applications such as prosthetic limb control. Peripheral nerve interfaces need to have enough durability to function reliably in vivo for extended periods of time to be considered practical for medical use. The focus of this report is on the development of a new intermediate connector for our tissue-engineered electronic nerve interface (TEENI) that will simplify the fabrication process by making it entirely in-house. This new TEENI ribbon connector will be made in the form of a long flexible printed circuit board (PCB) that will connect TEENI to a headcap connector. This connector is a fundamental redesign of the previous system in which a polyimide ribbon cable was micro-soldered onto the TEENI device. This new design will remove the requirement of micro-soldering. Instead, the device will be fabricated by a machine, which will expedite the fabrication process and make it much cheaper. The connector also features suture holes that will allow it to be sutured to the nerve to keep it fastened within the body. The connector will be coated in a layer of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to protect it in the body. Design validation will be accomplished through reactive-accelerated aging (RAA) testing and electrochemical impedance analysis of the both the ribbon connector alone and attached to TEENI to ensure that the device can stay intact for extended periods of time within the body.
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Poster
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