Organoids

Our neuroscientist-designed brain organoid electrophysiology systems are optimised for high-resolution electrophysiology in structurally-complex 3D brain organoids

Current 2D planar electrode arrays and 3D organoids are like square pegs and round holes...

The advent of brain organoids, colloquially known as 'mini-brains', as an experimental and potential clinical platform provides a physiologically relevant in vitro 3D brain model for studying disease-dysfunction-processes, drug screening, biomarker assessment and more. Their key advantage is that brain organoids self-organise into complex 3D neuro-architectural structures that preserve key cell-to-cell interactions found in the human brain. However, the current "go-to" state-of-the-art technologies for organoid electrophysiology consist of 2D planar multi-electrode arrays (MEAs) which are geometrically incongruous with 3D organoids; at best they allow for recording from the bottom surface of an organoid and commonly require physical-compression or slicing of the organoid which, of course, disrupts the complex internal structure of the tissue.

Using a 2D planar MEA to record from a 3D organoid is akin to stuffing a square-peg into a round hole...read on to learn how we put our 'mini-brains' to work on solving this problem...

Label-free electrophysiological monitoring in intact organoids at the single cell spiking level combined with optogenetics and imaging

Our renowned minimally-invasive in vivo silicon neural probes are easily repurposed in to a complete solution for user-definable 3D deep-access electrophysiology in intact organoids. Designed and optimised for single-unit recording in cell layers, the small and spatially-selective, yet low-impedance electrodes on our probes offer an optimal geometry for tandem multiple entry points across the active outer layers of intact organoids, whilst both preserving tissue structure and enabling the experimenter to freely search the entire organoid for activity 'hot-spots'.