The researchers — who are based at Peking University and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Brain Science — fabricated the probe by depositing an electrode array on an ultrathin, flexible plastic film and rolling it onto a tungsten microwire to form a cylindrical shank. The interconnecting metal lines of the probe are embedded inside the scroll while the recording electrodes and the input/output pads are on the outside. Duan and colleagues developed a flexible cold bonding method to connect the probe to the amplifying acquisition circuit using capillary forces, which occur during the solution evaporation, to deform the film with the input/output pads and make close physical contact with the target circuits. In rats, the recording was stable for up to 105 weeks and in rhesus macaques the probe could resolve up to 858 neural units.

Original reference: Nat. Neurosci. 27, 1620–1631 (2024)