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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: SF Chinese (ID:kexuejiaodian), author: SF

Electronic implants can provide electrical impulses and stimulate nerves, which provides a new idea for people to treat diseases. However, many electronic implants have the problem of rejection with the human body, which will cause immune responses such as inflammation, and even affect the therapeutic effect of the disease. Polymer hydrogels are favored by more and more scientists who study electronic implants because of their non-toxic affinity.

Wen Jing | Wen Jing

With the development of technology in medicine and other fields, there is hope for the cure of many insurmountable diseases and disabilities in the past. Moreover, due to the improvement of living standards, our life expectancy has generally increased, so there is a problem that has never been faced at the stage of human development in the past-- aging. We have to face new problems arising from aging, but also to meet the pursuit of the quality of life of modern people to ensure that we all have a high-quality old age life. Personalized medical care may be one way out of these problems.

Electronic implant as a bioelectronic device, its development integrates a number of technologies, and it has its own specific characteristics, in line with the development trend of personalized medicine.

Improving electronic implants requires metal-free electrode materials. Electronic implants are more and more widely used. For example, in order to eliminate the negative effects of heart and brain surgery, electronic devices need to be implanted in the heart and brain, which can provide continuous electrical stimulation to the heart and brain. Implanting electronic devices in specific parts of the brain can help blind people restore eyesight, or help people with Parkinson's disease restore mobility. Electronic devices are implanted under the clavicle and connected to the vagus nerve, which can be used to treat intractable epilepsy and depression, as well as to slow down the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease; in order to study the operation mechanism of various parts of the human body, scientists will also implant sensors or controllers into the volunteers' bodies to collect current, pressure, pulse and other data for physiological and pathological exploration and artificial intelligence development.

But the materials of electronic implants are often rejected by the human body, causing complications or inflammation. Polymeric materials are compatible with the human body, but most polymeric materials do not conduct electricity. It was not until the 1970s that scientists discovered that some polymeric materials had electrical conductivity. Metal can conduct electricity and is widely used in electronic equipment. Some scientists try to use polymeric materials in electronic implants as electrode materials to replace metals.

At present, many existing conductive polymer hydrogels are not suitable for some advanced manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing. Due to the general differences among biological individuals, bioelectronic devices require higher specificity in order to meet the individual needs of users (for example, we all know that orthodontic teeth are expensive, braces and braces need to be customized, and braces or braces are regularly adjusted according to the changes of the user's teeth), these materials that cannot be printed in 3D are not suitable for the manufacture of bioelectronic devices.

Recently, Zhao Xuanhe's team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published an article in Natural Materials (Nature Materials), reporting a high-performance conductive polymer hydrogel-BC-CPH (double continuous Conductive Polymer Hydrogel). This material has excellent electrical conductivity (more than 11s / cm), tensile properties (more than 400%) and fracture toughness (more than 3300J / m2).

In this study, scientists found that the viscosity of BC-CPH materials can be controlled by adjusting the content of solvents. Therefore, BC-CPH materials are suitable for a variety of manufacturing methods: low viscosity BC-CPH materials can be used in a variety of manufacturing methods, including rotary smearing and electrospinning, while high viscosity BC-CPH materials exhibit good rheological properties as a malleable and printable material, allowing BC-CPH microstructure to be fabricated through soft lithography-based microforming technology, as well as 3D printing.

According to this characteristic, scientists use low water content PU as encapsulation layer, BC-CPH as electrical functional layer and adhesive hydrogel as bonding layer for multi-material 3D printing, and the obtained hydrogel bioelectronic interface can be quickly, firmly and seamlessly integrated with the target tissue. If the electronic implant is to be removed, it is only necessary to use a specific separation solution to separate the bioelectronic interface from the target tissue, which will not cause tissue damage.

In addition, the whole hydrogel bioelectronic interface also has good cycling characteristics (the impedance of a single electrode can be stable for a long time and can withstand 10000 tensile strains), which can provide long-term electrophysiological effects for the body.

Scientists say the high-performance conductive polymer hydrogel provides a better electrical interface between machines and biological systems and will be more widely used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine in the future.

References:

Https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-023-01569-2

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