title: Nanotechnology and neurophysiology.
abstract: Neuroscience would be revolutionized by a technique to measure intracellular electrical potentials that would not disrupt cellular physiology and could be massively parallelized. Though such a technology does not yet exist, the technical hurdles for fabricating minimally disruptive, solid-state electrical probes have arguably been overcome in the field of nanotechnology. Nanoscale devices can be patterned with features on the same length scale as biological components, and several groups have demonstrated that nanoscale electrical probes can measure the transmembrane potential of electrogenic cells. Developing these nascent technologies into robust intracellular recording tools will now require a better understanding of device-cell interactions, especially the membrane-inorganic interface. Here we review the state-of-the art in nanobioelectronics, emphasizing the characterization and design of stable interfaces between nanoscale devices and cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Angle
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Bianxiao
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, CA, USA; Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA. Electronic address: nmelosh@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Nicholas A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Melosh
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D055724:Electrophysiological Phenomena / Q000502:physiology*; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D009482:Neurophysiology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*