Hair-thin electrode extending brain signal recording duration

• A hair-thin electrode design extends usable brain signal recording duration approximately three-fold, supporting chronic neural interfaces.¹
• Electrode form factor and longevity are key for long-duration recording; the result is relevant to neural recording and biomedical engineering (Medical Xpress; tier-1 pending peer-reviewed validation).^{1 1}

Weekly enrichment (2026-07-20)

• The coating was developed by a team led by Dr. Hyejeong Seong (Brain Convergence Research Division, Korea Institute of Science and Technology) in collaboration with Prof. Seongjun Park at Seoul National University, extending implanted electrode lifespan from about one month to over three months.^{2 3}
• The core method is photoinitiated chemical vapor deposition (piCVD), which applies an ultrathin (<100 nm) anti-fouling coating of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-co-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) while preserving low impedance for signal transmission.^{4 5}
• The electrode is fabricated from flexible plastic rather than rigid silicon, is roughly one-third the thickness of a human hair, and integrates neural recording with on-demand drug delivery.^{2 6}
• On contact with cerebrospinal fluid the coating swells like a sponge, blocking protein and immune-cell adhesion; in vitro tests showed near-complete resistance to albumin and fibrinogen adsorption versus uncoated surfaces.^{5 6}
• In mouse models evaluated over three months, coated probes reduced glial scarring by 66.6% and increased neuronal preservation by 84.6% compared with uncoated probes.^{4 5}
• Signal-to-noise ratio improved from 18.0 at week 1 to 20.7 at week 13, with high-quality spontaneous recordings and optically evoked potentials maintained throughout the study period.^{4 5}
• The coating remained stable after 24 hours of sonication, a durability unachievable with conventional wet-chemistry hydrogel coatings that typically fail around the one-month mark.⁵
• The work was published in Biomaterials (2025) and is positioned as a platform for chronic study of neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia and Parkinson’s and for commercialization of brain-computer interface systems.^{4 2}

Footnotes

1. https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMihAFBVV95cUxQclVERHlNTWxYWGhYRm5ick5WSDhSV01jTWcxZWo0N1RpNkdfVnY4c0lyUUtrSzNEb0FvMnNBbFpKdVlFYXlPVlpqOXE0aUJScjI0bG9ZNFctamJPdmVuOW14M25MeUtvWGlCYjhKdlA3NU1KcU9CTEJtSkNndWk5cVlNX1o?oc=5 ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-hair-thin-electrode-brain-duration.html ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. https://kist.re.kr/eng/newscenter/latest-research-news.do?articleNo=16837&mode=view ↩

4. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40680706/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biomaterials.2025.123554 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

6. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1102005 ↩ ↩²