Highly Cross-Linked, Physiologically Responsive, Mechanically Adaptive Polymer Networks Made by Photopolymerization.

ABSTRACT: Mechanically adaptive materials that soften upon exposure to physiological conditions are useful for biomedical applications, notably as substrates for implantable neural electrodes. So far, device fabrication efforts have largely relied on shaping such devices by laser cutting, but this process makes it difficult to produce complex electrode architectures and leads to ill-defined surface chemistries. Here, we report mechanically adaptive, physiologically responsive polymers that can be photopolymerized and thus patterned via soft lithography and photolithography. The adaptive polymer networks produced exhibit, in optimized compositions, a ca. 500-fold decrease of their storage modulus when exposed to simulated physiological conditions, for example, from 2.5 GPa to 5 MPa. This effect is ca

SUBMITTER: Monney B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7034001 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature