Dopamine-induced neural activity detection onto a cell-cultured plasmonic nanograting platform

Recently, many techniques have been used for recording neural signals and mapping such as EEG, MEG, MRI, fMRI, CT scan, fibre-optic techniques, etc. One of the novel techniques is neuroplasmonics which is employed both in vivo and in vitro. This technique combines nanotechnologies with biosensing and provides advantages such as biological compatibility, real-time analysis, small sample, label-free detection, low detection limit, and high throughput. In this paper, we fabricate a plasmonic chip as a one-dimensional plasmonic platform that contains a straight nanograding of polycarbonate coated with a thin layer of gold. The chip performance for the first time was evaluated via the plasmonic technique with and without dopamine. The results indicate a good sensing characterization to sense dopamine with a low dose (Kadhim in Optik 269: 169907, 2022). In this paper, the plasmonic chip is cultured with neuron cells extracted from the rat’s cortex based on the cultured protocol. After 2 weeks, the neuron cells were placed in the incubator with CO 2 and the plasmonic chip was placed in the homemade incubator and was injected with the cells’ food and the chemical stimulus as dopamine (DA). The cultured neuron cell activities were measured with different concentrations and polarizations. The neuron activity was recorded in different concentrations of dopamine (300, 500, 700 ppm) and with low concentrations of dopamine (0.5, 10 ppm) and evaluating the sensing performance. Finally, the effect of dopamine on neural activities was measured from 2 to 10 min to make sure that the measurement changes in the spectrum would result from the activity of the neuron cells. The measurement results show high performance with good sensitivity for the plasmonics chip to sense the activity of the neuron cells.