Implantable active dense CMOS neuroelectronics for brain activity recordings

In this lecture, we will first review the history of implantable electrode devices and focus on an emerging approach that uses CMOS technology to realize monolithic active devices integrating dense and large arrays of thousands of closely spaced microelectrodes. The later approach allows to access an unprecedented number of single-neurons and defines an innovative toolbox for brain interfacing devices. Our research is based on the Active Pixels Sensor (APS) circuit architecture that was originally demonstrated for in vitro and ex vivo applications. Recently, we adopted such APS approach to realize implantable probes (or SiNAPS-probes) by developing a modular and scalable circuit and electrode-pixels for neural recordings and electrical neuromodulation. As it will be discussed, this sets novel opportunities in neuroscience and innovation in biomedical applications, but it also introduces new challenges that need to be addressed at the system level, such as scalability, data dimensionality and power consumption.