A novel neural electrode with micro-motion-attenuation capability based on compliant mechanisms-physical design concepts and evaluations.

In order to solve the problem of the short lifespan of the neural electrode caused by micro motion, this study designed a novel neural electrode based on lumped compliance compliant mechanism to control different modes of micro-motion in a more effective way. According to the mathematical modeling of the novel neural electrode, the equivalent bending stiffness and equivalent tensile (compression) stiffness were calculated. The results of the finite element analysis based on the mathematical modeling revealed that the novel neural electrode showed excellent micro-motion-attenuation capability. The static analysis results showed that the novel design dramatically reduced the maximum displacement of the brain in 51% and the maximum stress in 41% under longitudinal micro-motion environment. It also effectively reduced the 5.1% maximum stress while maintaining the maximum displacement under lateral micro-motion environment. The experimental results based on the tissue injury evaluation system also confirmed that the novel electrode is more effective in micro-motion attenuation than the reference one. In detail, the strain of the brain tissue caused by the implantation of the neural electrode was decreased by 1.26 to 27.84% at the insertion depth of 3 mm, and 0.522 to 17.24% at the insertion depth of 4.5 mm, which has convinced the effectiveness of the design. Graphical abstract The schematic of the novel neural electrode and evaluationsystem of tissue injury.