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Flexible kirigami microelectrode arrays for neuronal activity recordings in non-human primate brains

Nature Electronics (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

The development of brain–computer interfaces requires implantable microelectrode arrays that can interface with numerous neurons across large spatial and temporal scales. However, creating arrays that can effectively accommodate the substantial movements and deformations of primate brains remains challenging. Here we report a kirigami-inspired flexible microelectrode array that has a reconfigurable spiral thread design and can be used for large-scale, long-term neuronal activity recordings in the primate brain. Each array can be transferred onto a hydrogel-coated brain surface using a water-dissolvable carrier, providing high-throughput delivery of multiple spiral threads across a large brain area. Stretchable spiral threads can be implanted into the cerebral cortex, with their base floating conformally on the brain surface to accommodate the large movements of the primate brain inside the skull. We show that the implanted array can provide simultaneous activity recordings from over 700 cortical neurons in a macaque monkey brain. We also demonstrate the accurate decoding of upper-limb kinematics from the spiking activity of the primary motor cortex (M1) neurons with a recurrent neural network model.

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Fig. 1: Structure of ki-MEAs.
Fig. 2: Depth implantation of ki-MEAs and neuronal activity recordings in rat brains.
Fig. 3: Neuronal activity recordings in rhesus macaque monkey brains.
Fig. 4: Large-scale neuronal activity recordings in a rhesus macaque monkey brain.
Fig. 5: Neuronal activity recordings in a rhesus macaque brain.

Data availability

Raw electrophysiological recording data from Rat 4 and Monkey 3 are available via Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24012834.v1 (ref. 66). Raw electrophysiological recording data from Monkey 1 are available via Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24016290.v1 (ref. 67) and https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25164149 (ref. 68). Raw electrophysiological recording data from Monkey 2 are available via Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25706859 (ref. 69), https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25702842 (ref. 70) and https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25706985 (ref. 71). Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Fabrication Lab at NCNST for the microfabrication facilities and support, and the Animal Resource Center at NCNST for animal (rodents) housing and care. We thank the technical support staff at the Institutional Center for Shared Technologies and Facilities of Institute of Psychology, CAS; the Laboratory Animal Center of Institute of Psychology, CAS; and the Laboratory Animal Resource Center of the Chinese Institute of Brain Research for animal (macaque monkeys) care and surgery. We thank T. Zhang for discussion on the monkey surgery procedure and G. Wu for help on LFADS. This work is supported by the National Science and Technology Innovation 2030 Major Program (grant number 2021ZD0202200; Y.F.); National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 21790393 and 32061143013; Y.F.), National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 22102040; H.T.) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Science (grant number XDB32030100; Y.F.).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Runjiu Fang, Huihui Tian, Yan Du.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China

    Runjiu Fang, Yinan Yang & Ying Fang

  2. CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, China

    Runjiu Fang, Huihui Tian, Yan Du, Yinan Yang, Shouliang Guan, Mengcheng Liu & Ke Xu

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Runjiu Fang, Yinan Yang, Shouliang Guan & Ke Xu

  4. CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Runjiu Fang, Huihui Tian, Yinan Yang, Shouliang Guan & Ke Xu

  5. College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China

    Yan Zhao

  6. State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Shengguang Li

  7. Beijing Institute for Brain Research, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China

    Ying Fang

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Contributions

Y.F. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. Y.D. fabricated and characterized the devices. H.T. fabricated the shuttle devices and shuttle device arrays. Y.Z. conducted the finite element simulation of the devices. R.F., H.T., Y.Y. and M.L. performed the surgery and electrophysiological recordings on rats. R.F., Y.Y. and S.L. performed the surgery and electrophysiological recordings on macaque monkey. R.F., Y.Y., S.G. and H.T. performed the electrophysiological analysis. R.F., H.T. and K.X. performed the histological and immunohistochemical analyses. Y.F. supervised the project. Y.F., H.T. and R.F. wrote the manuscript with input from all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ying Fang.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

R.F., H.T., Y.D. and Y.F. are co-inventors on a patent filed by the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, China, on the flexible neural electrode technology described in this study. Y.F. holds equity ownership in Beijing BCIFLEX Medical Co., Ltd, an entity that is licensing this technology. All other authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Electronics thanks Xiao Yang, Yi Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Depth implantation of a 240-channel ki-MEA into a rat brain.

a, A 1-mm-thick hydrogel film. Scale bar, 5 mm. b, A rat brain before and after the transferring of a pre-formed hydrogel film. Scale bars, 2 mm. c, The rat brain after the transferring of a 240-channel ki-MEA. Scale bar, 1 mm. d, The rat brain after the depth implantation of all the 24 spiral threads of the 240-channel ki-MEA. The implantation depth of the spiral threads was 2 mm. Scale bars, 1 mm and 500 µm (magnified view). e, Schematic showing the rat brain after the implantation of the 240-channel ki-MEA (top view).

Extended Data Fig. 2 Preparation of optical fiber shuttle arrays.

a, Schematic (top) and corresponding optical images (bottom) showing the preparation process of an optical fiber-based shuttle device. Scale bar, 250 μm. b, Preparation process of an optical fiber-based shuttle array. Magnified view shows the tips of the aligned optical fibers from the bottom. Scale bars, 2 mm and 1 mm (magnified view). c, Photos showing the etching process of an optical fiber shuttle array. From left to right: a 50-μm-long acrylate coating layer was removed from the front ends of all optical fibers; the exposed cladding layer was thinned down to ca. 60 μm in diameter; a 1-cm-long acrylate coating layer was removed from the front-ends of the optical fibers, and the exposed cladding and core layers were etched to form the final optical fiber shuttles with T-shaped front-ends. Scale bar, 1 mm. d, Photo of a shuttle array. Scale bar, 2 mm.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Assembly of a ki-MEA with shuttle array.

a, Schematic of a ki-MEA supported on a PMMA-coated silicon substrate. The silicon substrate was patterned with arrays of holes using deep silicon etching. b, Representative SEM image of a spiral supported on a PMMA-coated silicon substrate (n = 12 spiral threads). The right images are the enlarged views highlighted in the red box in the left image. Scale bars, 200 μm and 20 μm (magnified views). c, Optical images showing the alignment process of a shuttle array (SA) with a ki-MEA. Scale bar, 500 μm. d, Photos showing a SA/ki-MEA assembly stabilized with a PVA carrier. Scale bars, 2 mm and 1 mm (magnified view). e, Photos showing a released SA/ki-MEA assembly. Scale bars, 2 mm and 1 mm (magnified view). f, Optical images showing the optical fiber tips passing through the microholes of the spiral threads. Scale bars, 500 μm and 200 μm (magnified view).

Extended Data Fig. 4 High-throughput implantation of a ki-MEA.

Time-series images showing the simultaneous implantation of a 4 × 3 spiral thread array into a rat brain, including SA/ki-MEA assembly transferring (i), PVA dissolution (ii), SA-assisted depth implantation (iii), and SA retraction (iv). Scale bars, 2 mm and 500 μm (enlarged views). High-throughput refers to the number of the flexible threads that can be implanted into the brain in parallel.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Long-term recording stability of ki-MEAs in rat brains.

a, Schematic illustration of an implanted 120-channel ki-MEA covering M2 and Cg1 regions of the left and right hemispheres in a rat brain. M2: secondary motor area; Cg 1: cingulate area 1. The three brain slices were at 1.0 mm, 2.2 mm, and 3.4 mm anterior to bregma. The brain atlas images were adapted from the Waxholm Space atlas of the Sprague Dawley rat brain (RRID:SCR_017124, atlas version: 1.0.0)49,50. b, Neuron yield of ki-MEAs from 2 to 8 weeks post implantation in rats (n = 5 rats, Mean ± SD). n.s.: not significant by one-way ANOVA (two-sided test). Results showed no statistically significant difference between groups (F(3,16) = 2.30, P = 0.116). c, d, Spike amplitude and firing rates of recorded neurons from 2 to 8 weeks post implantation in rats (n = 5). Box plots in c and d: grey points indicated data points, red lines indicated median, bottom and top box edges indicated percentiles of 25% (Q1) and 75% (Q3), and whisker edges indicated min/max values, respectively.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 6 Intimate interface between chronically implanted spiral thread and neural tissue.

a, Three-dimensional reconstructed image of a cleared 500-μm-thick brain slice with an implanted spiral thread. The self-fluorescent polyimide structure was imaged using 568 nm excitation. YFP-expressing neurons were imaged using 514 nm excitation. Green: neurons; Red: auto-fluorescence from polyimide. Scale bar, 200 μm. b, Zoom-in views showing the intimate interface between chronically implanted spiral thread and neural tissue. Scale bars, 100 μm.

Extended Data Fig. 7 Chronic neuronal activity recordings in macaque monkey primary motor cortex by a 256-channel ki-MEA.

a, Action potential traces recorded by the 256-channel ki-MEA at 36 weeks post implantation. Scale bars, 100 ms (horizontal) and 500 μV (vertical). b, c, Example wide-band and action potential traces. Scale bars, 100 ms (horizontal) and 500 μV (vertical). d, Waveforms of simultaneously recorded M1 neurons. Scale bars, 1 ms (horizontal) and 500 μV (vertical).

Extended Data Fig. 8 Large-scale transferring of ki-MEAs on a macaque monkey brain.

A monkey was transferred with 4 ki-MEAs, each consisting of 256 microelectrodes, on the PMd, M1, and S1 regions. Each spiral thread consisted of 16 microelectrodes and had a width of 32 µm. Blue box highlights the region shown in Fig. 4b (left). Large-scale refers to the areal coverage of the implanted threads. Scale bar, 5 mm.

Extended Data Fig. 9 Large-scale implantation of ki-MEAs into a macaque monkey brain.

A monkey was implanted with ki-MEAs in the PMd, M1, and S1 regions for simultaneous 1024-channel recordings. The 1024 microelectrodes covered a recording volume of ~15 mm (AP) * 11 mm (ML)* 3 mm (DV). Blue box highlights the region shown in Fig. 4b (right). Scale bar, 5 mm.

Extended Data Fig. 10 Preferred directions of M1 neurons recorded by a 256-channel ki-MEA device in a macaque monkey brain.

a. Trial-averaged firing rates of 170 neurons as a function of hand direction. The regression equation for the fitted sinusoidal curve is D = a + b·sinθ + c·cosθ, where D is the frequency of discharge and θ is the direction of movement. b, Polar histograms of the preferred directions of 170 neurons.

Source data

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–12 and Methods.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Video 1

FEA simulation of the stretching process of a spiral thread.

Supplementary Video 2

Shuttle-device-assisted implantation of a ki-MEA into a rat brain (4× speed).

Supplementary Video 3

Shuttle-device-assisted implantation of a ki-MEA into a macaque monkey brain.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 3

Statistical source data for Fig. 3e–j.

Source Data Fig. 5

Statistical source data for Fig. 5c.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 5

Statistical source data for Extended Data Fig. 5b–d.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 10

Statistical source data for Extended Data Fig. 10a.

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Fang, R., Tian, H., Du, Y. et al. Flexible kirigami microelectrode arrays for neuronal activity recordings in non-human primate brains. Nat Electron (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-025-01560-6

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