PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Amanda Singer
AU  - Shayok Dutta
AU  - Eric Lewis
AU  - Ziying Chen
AU  - Joshua C. Chen
AU  - Nishant Verma
AU  - Benjamin Avants
AU  - Ariel K. Feldman
AU  - John O’Malley
AU  - Michael Beierlein
AU  - Caleb Kemere
AU  - Jacob T. Robinson
TI  - Magnetoelectric materials for miniature, wireless neural stimulation at therapeutic frequencies
AID  - 10.1101/461855
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 461855
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/03/15/461855.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/03/15/461855.full
AB  - A fundamental challenge for bioelectronics is to deliver power to miniature devices inside the body. Wires are common failure points and limit device placement. On the other hand, wireless power by electromagnetic or ultrasound waves must overcome absorption by the body and impedance mismatches between air, bone, and tissue. In contrast, magnetic fields suffer little absorption by the body or differences in impedance at interfaces between air, bone, and tissue. These advantages have led to magnetically-powered stimulators based on induction or magnetothermal effects. However, fundamental limitations in these power transfer technologies have prevented miniature magnetically-powered stimulators from applications in many therapies and disease models because they do not operate in clinical “high-frequency” ranges above 50 Hz. Here we show that magnetoelectric materials – applied in bioelectronic devices – enable miniature magnetically-powered neural stimulators that can operate up to clinically-relevant high-frequencies. As an example, we show that ME neural stimulators can effectively treat the symptoms of a hemi-Parkinson’s disease model in freely behaving rodents. We further demonstrate that ME-powered devices can be miniaturized to mm-sized devices, fully implanted, and wirelessly powered in freely behaving rodents. These results suggest that ME materials are an excellent candidate for wireless power delivery that will enable miniature bioelectronics for both clinical and research applications.