BCIwiki (bciwiki.com) — According to IEEE Transactions on Bio-Medical Engineering, the journal published a study of a reconfigurable microelectrode array on October 15, 2026. The researchers developed a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) microelectrode array (MEA) chip containing 24,576 electrodes for chemical and electrical recording of biological neural networks. The same hardware platform supports neurotransmitter-related sensing and neural current measurements.
The chip integrates a continuous-time/discrete-time current-sensing architecture for electrochemical and electrophysiological measurements. Its readout achieves an input-referred noise density of 2 fA/√Hz. Chemical recording has a bandwidth of 5 kHz and 24 simultaneous output channels, while electrical recording has a bandwidth of 70 kHz and 384 simultaneous output channels. The 24,576-electrode count does not represent the number of simultaneous output channels.
For electrochemical measurements, the researchers suppressed inter-electrode chemical crosstalk to improve spatial resolution. Experiments demonstrated electrochemical sensing at individual electrodes, quantitative dopamine detection in prepared solution, and dynamic electrochemical imaging with high spatial and temporal resolution. The dopamine result concerns detection in prepared solution, not demonstrated measurement of neurotransmitter release in vivo.
For electrophysiological measurements, the team successfully recorded spontaneous extracellular biocurrent from primary neurons, demonstrating cell-level electrophysiological current sensing. The authors suggest that the platform could help investigate interactions between chemical and electrical signaling in biological neural networks. These sample and cellular experiments do not establish human implantation performance or clinical efficacy.