A Fully Passive Wireless Microsystem for Recording of Neuropotentials Using RF Backscattering Methods

TLDR

Monitoring neuropotentials safely is essential, yet implantable sensors must be reliable, durable, and consume only milliwatts to avoid heat trauma, motivating research into wireless telemetry. The authors developed a fully passive, wireless microsystem to record neuropotentials. The system uses an external interrogator that supplies a microwave carrier, while on‑chip varactors nonlinearly mix the carrier with the neural signal to generate third‑order backscattered tones that the interrogator recovers. Wireless recording of emulated and in‑vivo neuropotentials demonstrated recovery of signals as low as ~500 µV pp over 10 Hz–3 kHz bandwidth, with 128‑epoch averaging for repetitive in‑vivo signals.

Abstract

The ability to safely monitor neuropotentials is essential in establishing methods to study the brain. Current research focuses on the wireless telemetry aspect of implantable sensors in order to make these devices ubiquitous and safe. Chronic implants necessitate superior reliability and durability of the integrated electronics. The power consumption of implanted electronics must also be limited to within several milliwatts to microwatts to minimize heat trauma in the human body. In order to address these severe requirements, we developed an entirely passive and wireless microsystem for recording neuropotentials. An external interrogator supplies a fundamental microwave carrier to the microsystem. The microsystem comprises varactors that perform nonlinear mixing of neuropotential and fundamental carrier signals. The varactors generate third-order mixing products that are wirelessly backscattered to the external interrogator where the original neuropotential signals are recovered. Performance of the neuro-recording microsystem was demonstrated by wireless recording of emulated and in vivo neuropotentials. The obtained results were wireless recovery of neuropotentials as low as approximately 500 microvolts peak-to-peak (μV(pp)) with a bandwidth of 10 Hz to 3 kHz (for emulated signals) and with 128 epoch signal averaging of repetitive signals (for in vivo signals).