Surface circumferential spinal cord recording in freely moving rodents.
Overview
- Electrical Engineering Division, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge,Cambridge, UK
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge,Cambridge, UK
- Cambridge Graphene Centre, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge,Cambridge, UK
- Department of Neurosurgery, Houston Methodist Hospital,Houston, TX USA
- Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Rice University,Houston, TX USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong,Hong Kong SAR, China
- Neuroengineering Initiative, Rice University,Houston, TX USA
Abstract
Spinal cord injury affects over 2.5 million people worldwide, yet current neuroprosthetic strategies remain fragmented, addressing motor, sensory, or autonomic function in isolation. Here we show that a single ultrathin circumferential electrode array, conforming to the spinal cord without penetrating neural tissue, can simultaneously decode motor intent, classify sensory inputs, and discriminate visceral sensory inputs. In freely moving rats during short-term implantation (up to three days), deep learning decoders achieved robust motor intent decoding (R² = 0.97) by exploiting low-frequency spinal oscillations aligned with central pattern generator rhythms. The same interface classified eight sensory modalities with 94.4% accuracy. In acutely anaesthetized pigs, cross-species validation confirmed translational scalability and reliably distinguished visceral sensory inputs. Uniquely, the two-row electrode configuration resolved directional propagation within spinal tracts while electrode-dense one-row devices enabled high-precision intraspinal source localization. By consolidating motor, sensory, and visceral afferent decoding within a single conformal interface, this approach positions the spinal cord as a target for multifunctional neuroprosthetic interfacing, offering a path toward integrated restoration of physiological function after neurological injury.
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Code
The paper links to its data, not to its authors' code: see the Data section.
Code availability
The code used in this study has been deposited in the Zenodo database under accession code 10.5281/
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Tracing map
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Data
Datasets cited
- zenodo:20030734, at Zenodo; found in “Code availability”
Data availability
The electrophysiological, kinematic, and processed machine learning data generated in this study have been deposited in the Zenodo database under accession code [10.5281/
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Versions
The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.
Version 2, 28 September 2026
- Funding: added National Institute for Health and Care Research: G112655; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council: EP/S022139/1
Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record
Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 13 authors, 3 keywords, 8 MeSH terms, 52 references.
Cite
This paper
El Hadwe, S., Ruiz-Mateos Serrano, R., Psaltakis, G., Forner, M., Lee, C., Swedick, S., Banta, A., Zhang, X., Ghannam, M., Hasan, T., Carnicer-Lombarte, A., Malliaras, G. G., & Barone, D. G. (2026). Surface circumferential spinal cord recording in freely moving rodents. Nature communications, 17(1), 8610. https://
BibTeX
@article{elhadwe2026surf
author = {El Hadwe, Salim and Ruiz-Mateos Serrano, Ruben and Psaltakis, George and Forner, Margaux and Lee, Chaeyeon and Swedick, Sydney and Banta, Anton and Zhang, Xueer and Ghannam, Moleca and Hasan, Tawfique and Carnicer-Lombarte, Alejandro and Malliaras, George G. and Barone, Damiano G.},
title = {{Surface circumferential spinal cord recording in freely moving rodents}},
journal = {Nature communications},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
volume = {17},
number = {1},
pages = {8610},
publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},
issn = {2041-1723},
doi = {10.1038/
url = {https://
pmid = {42443176},
pmcid = {PMC13487197}
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
AU - El Hadwe, Salim
AU - Ruiz-Mateos Serrano, Ruben
AU - Psaltakis, George
AU - Forner, Margaux
AU - Lee, Chaeyeon
AU - Swedick, Sydney
AU - Banta, Anton
AU - Zhang, Xueer
AU - Ghannam, Moleca
AU - Hasan, Tawfique
AU - Carnicer-Lombarte, Alejandro
AU - Malliaras, George G.
AU - Barone, Damiano G.
TI - Surface circumferential spinal cord recording in freely moving rodents
T2 - Nature communications
J2 - Nat Commun
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/
VL - 17
IS - 1
SP - 8610
SN - 2041-1723
PB - Nature Publishing Group
DO - 10.1038/
UR - https://
LA - en
ER -
CSL-JSON
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