Publications by Stéphanie Lacour

Direct laser writing of electronically conductive microstructures within soft hydrogel substrates

Stéphanie Lacour, Esther Amstad, Outman Akouissi, Lorenzo Lucherini

Hydrogels have emerged as promising materials for bioelectronic interfaces due to their tissue-like properties and high-water content. However, conventional hydrogels often suffer from poor electrical conductivity and mechanical stability, limiting their p ...

2025

Optogenetic modulation of peripheral nociceptive neurons with biocompatible optoelectronic implants

Bernard Schneider, Frédéric Pierre Gérald Michoud, Stéphanie Lacour, Ivan Furfaro, Valentina Marie Paggi

Hyperexcitability of peripheral sensory neurons plays a critical role in the development and maintenance of chronic pain. Pharmacological analgesics used in clinics reduce neuronal activity. They often come with non‐negligible side effects. Optogenetic app ...

Wiley2025

High-resolution prosthetic hearing with a soft auditory brainstem implant in macaques

Florian Dylan Fallegger, Stéphanie Lacour, Florent-Valéry Coen, Emilie Cornelia Maria Revol, Ivan Furfaro, Laurine Kolly, Jocelyne Bloch, Alix Esther Anne Trouillet

Individuals with compromised cochlear nerves are ineligible for cochlear implants and instead rely on auditory brainstem implants (ABIs). Most users of ABIs experience sound awareness, which aids in lip reading, yet not speech intelligibility. Here we engi ...

2025

Magnesium Optrodes for Real-Time Optical Monitoring of Water Transport in Ultrathin Encapsulations for Bioelectronics

Yves Leterrier, Stéphanie Lacour, Hatice Altug, Deepthy Kavungal, Massimo Mariello

Recent studies investigated the hydrolysis of Magnesium (Mg) thin films, highlighting their potential use in biodegradable devices. Quantitatively monitoring the degradation rate and morphological changes of Mg through optical methods and light-delivery de ...

2024

A soft, scalable and adaptable multi-contact cuff electrode for targeted peripheral nerve modulation

Florian Dylan Fallegger, Stéphanie Lacour, Silvestro Micera, Katia Galan, Ivan Furfaro, Valentina Marie Paggi, Olivier Didier Christian Rizzo

Background: Cuff electrodes target various nerves throughout the body, providing neuromodulation therapies for motor, sensory, or autonomic disorders. However, when using standard, thick silicone cuffs, fabricated in discrete circular sizes, complications ...

2024

Water-permeation sensor and method for making the same

Yves Leterrier, Stéphanie Lacour, Kyungjin Kim, Massimo Mariello

A water permeation sensor suitable for monitoring and quantitatively assessing ultra-low permeability of thin film encapsulations engineered for bioelectronic microdevices, its fabrication as well as device comprising the same are disclosed herein. ...

2024

Optical Monitoring of Water Side Permeation in Thin Film Encapsulation

Yves Leterrier, Stéphanie Lacour, Kangling Wu, Massimo Mariello

The stability of long-term microfabricated implants is hindered by the presence of multiple water diffusion paths within artificially patterned thin-film encapsulations. Side permeation, defined as infiltration of molecules through the lateral surface of t ...

Wiley-V C H Verlag Gmbh2024

Hermetic, Hybrid Multilayer, Sub-5µm-Thick Encapsulations Prepared with Vapor-Phase Infiltration of Metal Oxides in Conformal Polymers for Flexible Bioelectronics

Yves Leterrier, Stéphanie Lacour, Kangling Wu, Massimo Mariello

Reliable long-term function is crucial for flexible and soft bioelectronics. Mechanical defects and permeation of water molecules across the various device layers are the prime drivers of failure, and particularly in applications requiring continuous conta ...

2024

Magnesium Test: Universal and Ultra-Sensitive Method for Measuring Reliability of Thin-Film-Encapsulated Bioelectronic Implants in Physiological Environment

Yves Leterrier, Stéphanie Lacour, Grégoire Courtine, Lei Wang, Ivan Furfaro, Claudia Kathe, Kangling Wu, Massimo Mariello

Next-generation bioelectronic implants require miniaturization, durability, and long-term functionality. Thin film encapsulations, prepared with inorganic or hybrid organic/inorganic designs, are essential for ensuring protection, low water permeation, ada ...

Wiley-V C H Verlag Gmbh2024

The e-Flower: A hydrogel-actuated 3D MEA for brain reserved; exclusive licensee American spheroid electrophysiology Association for the Advancement of

Stéphanie Lacour, Ivan Furfaro, Outman Akouissi

Traditional microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are limited to measuring electrophysiological activity in two dimen- Attribution creative commons sions, failing to capture the complexity of three-dimensional (3D) tissues such as neural organoids and spheroids. no ...

2024

Cardiovascular Response to Intraneural Right Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Adult Minipig

Stéphanie Lacour, Silvestro Micera, Valentina Marie Paggi

Objective: This study explored intraneural stimulation of the right thoracic vagus nerve (VN) in sexually mature male minipigs to modulate safe heart rate and blood pressure response. Material and Methods: We employed an intraneural electrode designed for ...

ELSEVIER2024

Wireless, battery-free, and real-time monitoring of water permeation across thinfilm encapsulation

Yves Leterrier, Anja Skrivervik, Stéphanie Lacour, James Daniel Rosenthal, Mingxiang Gao, Massimo Mariello

Long-term bioelectronic implants require stable, hermetic encapsulation. Water and ion ingress are challenging to quantify, especially in miniaturized microsystems and over time. We propose a wireless and battery-free flexible platform leveraging backscatt ...

Springer Science and Business Media LLC2024

Towards Mimicking Brain Mechanical Loads: Stretchable Microelectrode Arrays for Brain Spheroid Electrophysiology

Stéphanie Lacour, Ivan Furfaro, Laurine Kolly

Human neural spheroids, 3D cellular aggregates of neurons and glial cells, are a compelling biological model for studying neuronal communication in physiological and pathological conditions, such as neurodevelopment and traumatic brain injury (TBI), respec ...

FUNDACIO DE LA COMUNITAT VALENCIANA SCITO2024

Revealing the complexity of ultra-soft hydrogel re-swelling inside the brain

Stéphanie Lacour, Michael Shur, John Martin Kolinski, Outman Akouissi, Olivier Didier Christian Rizzo

The brain is an ultra-soft viscoelastic matrix. Sub-kPa hydrogels match the brain's mechanical properties but are challenging to manipulate in an implantable format. We propose a simple fabrication and processing sequence, consisting of de-hydration, patte ...

2023

Hydrogels and conductive hydrogels for implantable bioelectronics

Stéphanie Lacour, Emilio Fernández Lavado, Outman Akouissi, Massimo Mariello, Kutay Sagdic

Hydrogels are a class of soft materials, which display unique biomimetic properties to biological tissues. Their mechanical properties, high water content, and porosity resemble that of extracellular matrix so that cell growth and proliferation can be reli ...

2023

Liquid Metal-Based Sensor Skin Enabling Haptic Perception of Softness

Stéphanie Lacour, Ivan Furfaro, Emilio Fernández Lavado, Haotian Chen

Haptic perception of softness is a unique feature of the human skin that relies on the concurrent measurements of the lateral deformation and compression of the skin during object manipulation. This is challenging to implement in robotics because of combin ...

2023

Sensitivity to Pulse Rate and Amplitude Modulation in an Animal Model of the Auditory Brainstem Implant (ABI)

Stéphanie Lacour, Florent-Valéry Coen

The auditory brainstem implant (ABI) is an auditory neuroprosthesis that provides hearing by electrically stimulating the cochlear nucleus (CN) of the brainstem. Our previous study (McInturff et al., 2022) showed that single-pulse stimulation of the dorsal ...

SPRINGER2023

Decoding bladder state from pudendal intraneural signals in pigs

Stéphanie Lacour, Silvestro Micera, Ivo Strauss, Leonardo Pollina, Valentina Marie Paggi

Neuroprosthetic devices used for the treatment of lower urinary tract dysfunction, such as incontinence or urinary retention, apply a pre-set continuous, open-loop stimulation paradigm, which can cause voiding dysfunctions due to neural adaptation. In the ...

2023

Implantable electrical/electronic biomedical device, system and methods for using the same

Ludovic Serex, Nicolas Vachicouras, Florian Dylan Fallegger, Stéphanie Lacour, Sukho Song

It is disclosed an implantable electrical/electronic biomedical device comprising: a) a reservoir (100) comprising an inlet (101) at a first end and a mechanical support (200) at a second, opposed end, and b) at least one electrode structure (300) deployab ...

2023

GaitSkin system: Wireless vibrotactile skin patch with gait tracker for sensorimotor conflict creation

Bruno Herbelin, Olaf Blanke, Stéphanie Lacour, Ivan Furfaro, Emilio Fernández Lavado, Haotian Chen, Selim Jean Habiby Alaoui

This paper details the development and preliminary testing of GaitSkin, a wearable haptic interface designed for generating sensorimotor conflicts during locomotion. The system leverages real-time gait tracking and a wireless vibrotactile skin patch to pro ...

IEEE2023