• coating
• invasive neural interfaces
• Neural interfaces
• peripheral invasive neural interfaces
• surface functionalization
• surface modification

The importance of neuronal disorders and neurological impairment in the field of neuroscience tremendously increased in the recent past.
Micromachining technologies were established to fabricate implantable devices able to provide a man-machine interface to the nervous system in patients with degenerative diseases or amputee limbs.
The present work focuses on peripheral nervous system (PNS) applications in the form of peripheral invasive neural interfaces.
Even if recognized as one key component for establishing a functional electrical connection with nerves and muscles, invasive electrodes show electrical instabil-ity due to the foreign body response.
Aim of this work was to investigate different strategies elaborated to surface-functionalize implantable polyimide sheets for PNS applications, in particular for neural interfaces based on thin film technology (tf-LIFEs and TIMEs).
Cross-linkable vinyl groups were introduced on the polyimide surface in order to obtain an increase in surface roughness and to create a substrate endowed with structure-reactivity for thiol-containing amino acids or peptides (able to promote neural migration, growth and differentiation).
Samples' surfaces, firstly characterized by means of atomic force microscopy and static contact angle mesurements, were subsequently treated with L-cysteine and Rhodamine-B conjugated cysteine and characterized using ninhydrin col-orimetric analysis, SEM microanalysis and image analysis with Matlab.
Finally, preliminary in vitro tests were conducted using PC12 cells.
All results indicated that surface functionalization was successful.