Smart diamONd chIp for neurosCience-finanziato dall’Unione europea –NextGenerationEU” Missione 4 - Componente 2” - Investimento 1.3- PE00000006- MNESYS- B83C22004960002

This project integrates neuroscience and diamond technology to realize multi-task sensing arrays targeted to multiparametric bio-sensing (D-MEAs). Graphitic D-MEA prototypes (gD-MEAs), realized in our laboratories, have been demonstrated to be suitable for monitoring the quantal exocytotic release of catecholamines from chromaffin cells and, more recently, for measuring neuronal excitability and quantal dopamine release from cultured midbrain dopaminergic neurons. We now aim to apply this smart approach to investigating synaptic plasticity and cell excitability under physiological conditions and in neurodegenerative models. With respect to the existing prototypes, taking advantage of the unique properties of diamond surface (wide range of water splitting potential, transparency, inertness and chemical stability, biocompatibility), here we aim: i) to realize a new diamond-based array, in which the opaque graphitic channels and electrodes are replaced by boron-doped paths. In this way, both the sensing electrodes, emerging at the diamond surface, and the doped microchannels are embedded into a completely transparent D-MEAs (bD-MEA), suitable to be interfaced with fluorescence microscopy. ii) to upgrade the overall D-MEA recording setup, in order to realize a user-friendly, multi-task tool, suitable for long-term recordings. In more detail, D-MEAs will be improved by optimizing the signal-to-noise ratio, interfaced with adequate perfusion and oxygenation systems, D-MEAs sterility preserved for several weeks, stimulating versus sensing electrodes could be selected. Taking advantage of these improvements, D-MEAs can operate as multi-task sensing arrays to investigate functional cell-type properties in synaptic networks by combining the measurement of: • Action potential firing from networks of cells or tissue slices (potentiometric configuration) • Release of oxidizable neurotransmitters (amperometric configuration) • Intracellular Ca2+ transients