Microelectronic neural bridge for signal regeneration and function rebuilding over two separate nerves

According to the feature of neural signals, a micro-electronic neural bridge (MENB) has been designed. It consists of two electrode arrays for neural signal detection and functional electrical stimulation (FES), and a microelectronic circuit for signal amplifying, processing, and FES driving. The core of the system is realized in 0.5-μm CMOS technology and used in animal experiments. A special experimental strategy has been designed to demonstrate the feasibility of the system. With the help of the MENB, the withdrawal reflex function of the left/right leg of one spinal toad has been rebuilt in the corresponding leg of another spinal toad. According to the coherence analysis between the source and regenerated neural signals, the controlled spinal toad's sciatic nerve signal is delayed by 0.72 ms in relation to the sciatic nerve signal of the source spinal toad and the cross-correlation function reaches a value of 0.73. This shows that the regenerated signal is correlated with the source sciatic signal significantly and the neural activities involved in reflex function have been regenerated. The experiment demonstrates that the MENB is useful in rebuilding the neural function between nerves of different bodies.