Publications by Ivan Furfaro | EPFL Graph Search

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wireless closed-loop optogenetics across the entire dorsoventral spinal cord in mice

Léonie Asboth, Jérôme Gandar, Frédéric Pierre Gérald Michoud, Stéphanie Lacour, Grégoire Courtine, Quentin Barraud, Noaf Salah Ali Alwahab, Ivan Furfaro, Ileana Ozana Jelescu, Andreas Rowald, Claudia Kathe, Valentina Marie Paggi, Jimmy James Ravier, Kyungjin Kim, Thomas Haynes Hutson

Optoelectronic systems can exert precise control over targeted neurons and pathways throughout the brain in untethered animals, but similar technologies for the spinal cord are not well established. In the present study, we describe a system for ultrafast, ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2022

Microscale Liquid Metal Conductors for Stretchable and Transparent Electronics

Giuseppe Schiavone, Laurent Mirko Dejace, Stéphanie Lacour, Ivan Furfaro, Haotian Chen

Integrated wearable electronics capable of transducing and transmitting biophysical information on complex and dynamic systems are attracting high interest across the consumer electronics, clinical, and research domains. Gallium and gallium-based liquid me ...

Wiley2021

Reactive Exercises with Interactive Objects: Interim Analysis of a Randomized Trial on Task-Driven NMES Grasp Rehabilitation for Subacute and Early Chronic Stroke Patients

Silvestro Micera, Andrea Crema, Flavio Raschella, Ivan Furfaro

Enriched environments and tools are believed to promote grasp rehabilitation after stroke. We designed S2, an interactive grasp rehabilitation system consisting of smart objects, custom orthoses for selective grasp constraining, and an electrode array syst ...

MDPI2021

Bioinspired Liquid Metal Based Sensing System For Compliance Detection

Stéphanie Lacour, Ivan Furfaro, Haotian Chen

In this paper, we report a fully stretchable liquid metal based sensor system for compliance detection. The system is composed of a strain sensor layer, a gap layer with a hole in the center and a pressure sensor layer from top to bottom. Inspired from the ...

IEEE2021

Soft, Implantable Bioelectronic Interfaces for Translational Research

Sébastien Jiguet, Giuseppe Schiavone, Nicolas Vachicouras, Florian Dylan Fallegger, Stéphanie Lacour, Grégoire Courtine, Marco Capogrosso, Evgenia Vladimirova Roussinova, Ivan Furfaro, Andreas Rowald, Beatrice Barra, Simon Borgognon, Jocelyne Bloch, Xiaoyang Kang, Ismael Seanez Gonzalez

The convergence of materials science, electronics, and biology, namely bioelectronic interfaces, leads novel and precise communication with biological tissue, particularly with the nervous system. However, the translation of lab‐based innovation toward cli ...

Wiley2020

Epineural optogenetic activation of nociceptors initiates and amplifies inflammation

Frédéric Pierre Gérald Michoud, Stéphanie Lacour, Katia Galan, Ivan Furfaro, Outman Akouissi

Activation of nociceptor sensory neurons by noxious stimuli both triggers pain and increases capillary permeability and blood flow to produce neurogenic inflammation(1,2), but whether nociceptors also interact with the immune system remains poorly understo ...

NATURE RESEARCH2020

Gallium‐Based Thin Films for Wearable Human Motion Sensors

Laurent Mirko Dejace, Stéphanie Lacour, Ivan Furfaro, Nathan Joseph Laubeuf

Wearable electronic circuits based on the films of gallium and its alloys offer promising implementations in health monitoring and gaming sensing applications. However, the complex rheology of liquid metals makes it challenging to manufacture thin gallium‐ ...

2019

A Wearable Multi-Site System for NMES-Based Hand Function Restoration

Silvestro Micera, Andrea Crema, Flavio Raschella, Ivan Furfaro

2018