In the past few decades, researchers have made strides in fabricating brain-machine interfaces to measure electrical activity and stimulate regions in the brain. While significant progress has been made in reducing noise and increasing resolution, creating probes that can perform chronic measurements in the brain has remained elusive, because upon being surgically implanted in the brain, probes irritate surrounding brain tissue, causing glial sheaths to grow and envelope the probes, damping electrical signals. In order to avoid this immune response, we devise a reconfigurable probe that can change shape once it is embedded in the brain. We fabricate this device, deploy it in live mice brains, and fully characterize it before and after reconfiguration.

Ive done several UROPs before: My freshman year, I studied metastasis in lung cancer cell lines in the Weinberg Lab. My sophomore year, I worked on building the power system for solar boats to be deployed in the Amazon. But never before have I worked on a project that combines my two passions: medicine and EECS.