Minimally invasive scalable cortical microelectrode arrays

• Minimally invasive, scalable cortical microelectrode arrays represent a next step in chronic neural recording and BCI hardware.¹
• The approach combines minimally invasive deployment with scalable fabrication, directly relevant to long-term BCI viability.^{1 1}

Weekly enrichment (2026-07-20)

• Primary report from Precision Neuroscience: “Minimally invasive implantation of scalable high-density cortical microelectrode arrays for multimodal neural decoding and stimulation,” Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2 October 2025 (doi:10.1038/s41551-025-01501-w; PMID 41039113).²³⁴
• Core device: a 1,024-channel thin-film micro-electrocorticography (µECoG) array comprising 977 recording electrodes (50 µm), 42 stimulation electrodes (380 µm), and 5 reference electrodes (500 µm) at a uniform 400 µm inter-electrode pitch; a 529-channel version (multiple sizes, 300 µm pitch) was fabricated to optimize spacing.⁵
• Manufacturing and characterization: process yields were >93% (529-channel) and 91% (1,024-channel); electrode impedance scaled with surface area from ~802 ± 30 kΩ (20 µm) down to ~8.25 ± 0.65 kΩ (380 µm) and was stable before versus after implantation.⁵
• Delivery: a “cranial micro-slit” technique makes 500–900 µm skull incisions tangential to the cortical surface, enabling subdural insertion without a burr hole or craniotomy; the full surgical procedure was performed in under 20 minutes.²⁵
• Preclinical validation: 22 cranial micro-slit insertions across 8 Göttingen minipigs, plus a formal safety/reversibility study in 16 minipigs at 7-day and 42-day timepoints with no observed neurologic impairment; insertion feasibility was also demonstrated in human cadavers.⁵
• Scalability and modularity: modules can be tiled — doubly connected 529-channel modules gave 1,058 channels over 0.96 cm² of cortex, and up to four devices (two 529-channel arrays per hemisphere) reached 2,116 channels in a single animal.⁵
• Recording and decoding: software allowed real-time visualization of all 1,024 channels, resolving electrocortical activity up to 500 Hz; the system accurately decoded somatosensory, visual, and volitional-walking activity and achieved focal neuromodulation via sub-millimetre cortical stimulation.²⁵
• Clinical translation: a five-patient intraoperative pilot in anaesthetized and awake neurosurgical patients characterized the spatial scales at which sensorimotor activity and speech are represented at the cortical surface, positioning scalable µECoG as a basis for next-generation BCIs.²⁵

Footnotes

1. https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiX0FVX3lxTE5RWm84cmZfTXA1ZktRV3gweE91aHliT1dCSC12Z0RKUTZ3QTI4RDlaaG8yazUzbkwzc3F6Zk9jVmdUWExiRi1FRHh4Y0I2WktvdmY5MkxCV3c0VlFYbWlv?oc=5 ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-025-01501-w ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01501-w ↩

4. https://europepmc.org/article/MED/41039113 ↩

5. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-025-01501-w.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷