A Wearable Wireless Electrochemical Instrument Used for In-vivo Neurotransmitter Detection

Abstract A wireless electrochemical recording device was developed for the neurotransmitters real-time detection with a low-power microcontroller MSP430 as main control unit, including current detection module, waveform generator module and data transceiver module. This device has a small size (2.3 cm × 1.8 cm × 0.6 cm) and low power consumption. In the experiment, firmware program was designed based on uC/OS operating system and online display and analysis of recording data were carried out by the proposed system combined with the PC software. The system implemented two electroanalytical methods, fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV) and fixed-potential amperometry, to measure neurotransmitter concentrations at microelectrode. By using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry method, a linear relationship ( R = 0.99) between the concentration of dopamine and response current was acquired in the concentration range of 0.5 × 10 −6 −7.0 × 10 −5 M. In the in-vivo experiments, the electrically evoked dopamine was recorded in the caudate-putamen area of brain in rats. The experimental results show that the system has high detection accuracy, realizing the qualitative and quantitative analysis of brain neurotransmitter.