Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and SU-8 are currently two very commonly used polymeric materials in the microfluidics field for biological applications. However; there is a pressing need to find a simple, reliable, irreversible bonding method between these two materials for their combined use in innovative integrated microsystems. In this paper, we attempt to investigate the aminosilane-mediated irreversible bonding method for PDMS and SU-8 with X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) surface analysis and bonding strength tests. Additionally, the selected bonding method was applied in fabricating a microelectrode array (MEA) device, including microfluidic features, which allows electrophysiological observations on compartmentalized neuronal cultures. As there is a growing trend towards microfluidic devices for neuroscience research, this type of integrated microdevice, which can observe functional alterations on compartmentalized neuronal culture, can potentially be used for neurodegenerative disease research and pharmaceutical development.

Repetitive magnetic stimulation (rTMS), including theta burst stimulation (TBS), is capable of modulating motor cortical excitability through plasticity-like mechanisms and might have therapeutic potential for Parkinson's disease (PD). An animal model would be helpful for elucidating the mechanism of rTMS that remain unclear and controversial. Here, we have established a TMS model in rat and applied this model to study the impact of substantia nigra dopamine neuron on TBS-induced motor plasticity in PD rats. In parallel with human results, continuous TBS (cTBS) successfully suppressed motor evoked potentials (MEPs), while MEPs increased after intermittent TBS (iTBS) in healthy rats. We then tested the effect of iTBS in early and advanced 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned PD. Moreover, dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra and rotation behavior were assessed to correlate with the amount of iTBS-induced plasticity. In results, iTBS-induced potentiation was reduced in early PD rats and was absent in advanced PD rats. Such reduction in plasticity strongly correlated with the dopaminergic cell loss and the count of rotation in PD rats. In conclusion, we have established a TMS PD rat model. With the help of this model, we confirmed the loss of domaninergic neurons in substantia nigra resulting in reduced rTMS-induced motor plasticity in PD.

In this Letter, a new method is proposed to further improve the detection sensitivity of the gas sensor based on off-axis integrated cavity spectroscopy (OA-ICOS) using a distributed feedback laser operating in the near-infrared at 1653 nm that relies on implementation of wavelength modulation and radio frequency (RF) white noise perturbation to diode laser current. More than sixfold improvement in detection limit is achieved for an RF noised wavelength-modulated OA-ICOS compared to the unperturbed conventional OA-ICOS approach.

In addition to generating functional limb movement via electrical stimulation, other research proposed lower intensity stimulation for stroke patients from proprioceptive and neuro-biofeedback aspects. This study investigates the effects of different intensity levels of electrical stimulation during passive cycling on cortical activation using multichannel near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) covering premotor cortex (PMC), supplementary motor area (SMA), sensorimotor cortex (SMC), and secondary sensory cortex (S2) regions. Sixteen subjects, including nine stroke patients and seven normal subjects, were instructed to perform passive cycling driven by an ergometer at a pace of 50 rpm under conditions without (NES) and with low-intensity electrical stimulation (LES) at 10 mA and high-intensity electrical stimulation (HES) at 30 mA. Changes in oxyhemoglobin in different brain regions and the derived interhemispheric correlation coefficient (IHCC) representing the symmetry in response of two hemispheres were evaluated to observe cortical activation and cerebral autoregulation. Our results showed that cortical activation of normal subjects exhibited overall deactivations in HES compared with that under LES and NES. In stroke patients, bilateral S2 activated significantly greater under LES compared with those under NES and HES. The IHCC of the normal group displayed a significant higher value in SMC compared to that of the stroke group. Our study utilized noninvasive NIRS to observe hemodynamic changes and bilateral autoregulation symmetry from IHCC suggesting that passive cycling with low-intensity electrical stimulation could better facilitate cortical activation compared with that obtained with no or high-intensity electrical stimulation. The results of this study could provide general guidelines to simplify the settings of electrical stimulation-assisted-passive cycling in clinical use.