Biomedical subjects

Sung June Kim

Publications and source records attributed to Sung June Kim.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2007

Sensitivity analysis of a nanowire-based surface plasmon resonance biosensor in the presence of surface roughness.

We have investigated the effect of surface roughness on the sensitivity of conventional and nanowire-based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensors. The theoretical research was conducted using rigorous coupled-wave analysis with Gaussian surface profiles of gold films determined by atomic force microscopy. The results suggest that, when surface roughness ranges near 1 nm, the sensitivity of a conventional SPR system is not significantly affected regardless of the correlation length. For a nanowire-based SPR biosensor, however, we have found that the sensitivity degrades substantially with decreasing correlation length. In particular, at a correlation length smaller than 100 nm, a random rough surface may induce destructive coupling between excited localized surface plasmons, which can lead to prominent reduction of sensitivity enhancement.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2006

Low-density neuronal networks cultured using patterned poly-l-lysine on microelectrode arrays.

Synaptic activity recorded from low-density networks of cultured rat hippocampal neurons was monitored using microelectrode arrays (MEAs). Neuronal networks were patterned with poly-l-lysine (PLL) using microcontact printing (microCP). Polydimethysiloxane (PDMS) stamps were fabricated with relief structures resulting in patterns of 2 microm-wide lines for directing process growth and 20 microm-diameter circles for cell soma attachment. These circles were aligned to electrode sites. Different densities of neurons were plated in order to assess the minimal neuron density required for development of an active network. Spontaneous activity was observed at 10-14 days in networks using neuron densities as low as 200 cells/mm(2). Immunocytochemistry demonstrated the distribution of dendrites along the lines and the location of foci of the presynaptic protein, synaptophysin, on neuron somas and dendrites. Scanning electron microscopy demonstrated that single fluorescent tracks contained multiple processes. Evoked responses of selected portions of the networks were produced by stimulation of specific electrode sites. In addition, the neuronal excitability of the network was increased by the bath application of high K(+) (10-12 mM). Application of DNQX, an AMPA antagonist, blocked all spontaneous activity, suggesting that the activity is excitatory and mediated through glutamate receptors.

Action Potentials↗

PubMed2006

Antibody-based surface plasmon resonance detection of intact viral pathogen.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technique was used to directly detect an intact form of insect pathogen: the baculovirus, Autographa californica multiple nuclear polyhedrosis virus (AcMNPV). An SPR sensor chip with three bio-functional layers was used to detect the intact AcMNPV: amine-reactive crosslinker with a disulfide bond that chemisorbs to gold film, Protein A, and a mouse IgG monoclonal antibody raised against a surface protein of the target viral pathogen. A two-channel (reference & test) micro-fluidic SPR system is used for reliable measurement. Bio-specific response to the AcMNPV is compared with the response for tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) as control. Successive exposure of the sensor chip to both viruses verifies a specific response to AcMNPV. This serves as a prerequisite to the development of a new type of viral pathogen detection sensors.

Antibodies, Viral↗

PubMed2006

Biphasic electric current stimulates proliferation and induces VEGF production in osteoblasts.

This study investigated biphasic electric current (BEC) functions as a new type of electrical stimulation to induce rat calvarial osteoblasts to proliferate, differentiate and synthesize cytokines. The culture system was designed so that biphasic current flowed between upper and lower gold plates. BEC helps to minimize the net charge accumulation during cell exposure to the electrical stimulation. Osteoblasts were exposed to electrical stimulation of 1.5 microA/cm2 at 3000 Hz, and the effect of BEC was assessed in the interrupted mode (6 h daily) and in the continuous mode (24 h daily), depending on the interval of stimulation. Whereas proliferation increased by 31% after stimulation in the continuous mode for 2 days, it was unaffected in the interrupted mode. The transcriptional expression of osteogenesis-related genes such as alkaline phosphatase (ALP), osteopontin, and type I collagen was unchanged 4 days after stimulation in both modes, while cbfa1 was decreased under the same conditions. There was no detectable change in mRNA expression of growth factors (BMP-2, -4, IGF-2 and TGF-beta1) that promote osteoblast differentiation. However, real-time RT-PCR and ELISA demonstrated that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was markedly up-regulated by BEC. Induction of VEGF by BEC was not hypoxia driven. In conclusion, the present in vitro study demonstrates that BEC increases cell proliferation and induces the production of VEGF. The BEC was more effective with continuous stimulation than with interrupted stimulation. To confirm whether BEC can enhance osteogenesis, further in vivo studies are needed.

Animals↗

PubMed2006

Profile effect on the feasibility of extinction-based localized surface plasmon resonance biosensors with metallic nanowires.

We investigate the effect of the cross-sectional profile of an array of metallic nanowires on the feasibility of a localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) biosensor. Calculations were performed using rigorous coupled-wave analysis with an emphasis on the extinction properties of the LSPR structure. The results indicate that the nanowire structure, particularly that of a T-profile, delivers an extremely linear sensing performance over a wide range of the target refractive index with much enhanced sensitivity. The extinction-based LSPR structure also involves a relatively large dimension and thus is expected to provide a feasible biosensor using current semiconductor technology.

Biosensing Techniques↗

PubMed2006

Improvement of spike train decoder under spike detection and classification errors using support vector machine.

The successful decoding of kinematic variables from spike trains of motor cortical neurons is essential for cortical neural prosthesis. Spike trains from each single unit must be extracted from extracellular neural signals and, thus, spike detection and sorting procedure is indispensable but the detection and sorting may involve considerable error. Thus, a decoding algorithm should be robust with respect to spike train errors. Here, we show that spike train decoding algorithms employing nonlinear mapping, especially a support vector machine (SVM), may be more advantageous contrary to previous results which showed that an optimal linear filter is sufficient. The advantage became more conspicuous in the case of erroneous spike trains. Using the SVM, satisfactory training of the decoder could be achieved much more easily, compared to the case of using a multilayer perceptron, which has been employed in previous studies. Tests were performed on simulated spike trains from primary motor cortical neurons with a realistic distribution of preferred direction. The results suggest the possibility that a neuroprosthetic device with a low-quality spike sorting preprocessor can be achieved by adopting a spike train decoder that is robust to spike sorting errors.

Action Potentials↗

PubMed2006

A high-yield fabrication process for silicon neural probes.

There is a great need for silicon microelectrodes that can simultaneously monitor the activity of many neurons in the brain. However, one of the existing processes for fabricating silicon microelectrodes-reactive-ion etching in combination with anisotropic KOH etching-breaks down at the wet-etching step for device release. Here we describe a modified wet-etching sidewall-protection technique for the high-yield fabrication of well-defined silicon probe structures, using a Teflon shield and low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) silicon nitride. In the proposed method, a micro-tab holds each individual probe to the central scaffold, allowing uniform anisotropic KOH etching. Using this approach, we obtained a well-defined probe structure without device loss during the wet-etching process. This simple method yielded more accurate fabrication and an improved mechanical profile.

Action Potentials↗

PubMed2005

Superiority of nonlinear mapping in decoding multiple single-unit neuronal spike trains: a simulation study.

One of the most important building blocks of the brain-machine interface (BMI) based on neuronal spike trains is the decoding algorithm, a computational method for the reconstruction of desired information from spike trains. Previous studies have reported that a simple linear filter is effective for this purpose and that no noteworthy gain is achieved from the use of nonlinear algorithms. In order to test this premise, we designed several decoding algorithms based on the linear filter, and two nonlinear mapping algorithms using multilayer perceptron (MLP) and support vector machine regression (SVR). Their performances were assessed using multiple neuronal spike trains generated by a biophysical neuron model and by a directional tuning model of the primary motor cortex. The performances of the nonlinear algorithms, in general, were superior. The advantages of using nonlinear algorithms were more profound for cases where false-positive/negative errors occurred in spike trains. When the MLPs were trained using trial-and-error, they often showed disappointing performance comparable to that of the linear filter. The nonlinear SVR showed the highest performance, and this may be due to the superiority of SVR in training and generalization.

Action Potentials↗

PubMed2005

Three-dimensional analysis of electrode behavior in a human cochlear model.

Three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis is used in this study to model the mechanical effects of the electrode in a cochlear implant. We employ six electrodes with different stiffness produced by different arrangements of metal wires. Different wire arrangements are generated by changing the fitness function of a genetic program. The human cochlea is modeled by the spiral-approximation method. Reconstructed three-dimensional CT images are used to model the real insertion condition. The contact pressure at the tip and the insertion force are found to be highest when the wires are stacked horizontally. Axial rotation of the electrode has minimal effect on the stimulating current spread. The electrode does not contact the basilar membrane. The results indicate that considering the electrode stiffness is important to minimizing mechanical trauma in cochlear implantation.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2003

Method for unsupervised classification of multiunit neural signal recording under low signal-to-noise ratio.

Neural spike sorting is an indispensable step in the analysis of multiunit extracellular neural signal recording. The applicability of spike sorting systems has been limited, mainly to the recording of sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratios, or to the cases where supervised classification can be utilized. We present a novel unsupervised method that shows satisfactory performance even under high background noise. The system consists of an efficient spike detector, a feature extractor that utilizes projection pursuit based on negentropy maximization (Huber, 1985 and Hyvarinen et al, 1999), and an unsupervised classifier based on probability density modeling using mixture of Gaussians (Jain et al., 2000). Our classifier is based on the mixture model with a roughly approximated number of Gaussians and subsequent mode-seeking. It does not require accurate estimation of the number of units present in the recording and, thus, is better suited for use in fully automated systems. The feature extraction stage leads to better performance than those utilizing principal component analysis and two nonlinear mappings for the recordings from the somatosensory cortex of rat and the abdominal ganglion of Aplysia. The classification method yielded correct classification ratio as high as 95%, for data where it was only 66% when a kappa-means-type algorithm was used for the classification stage.

Action Potentials↗

PubMed2003

A wavelet-based method for action potential detection from extracellular neural signal recording with low signal-to-noise ratio.

We present a method for the detection of action potentials, an essential first step in the analysis of extracellular neural signals. The low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and similarity of spectral characteristic between the target signal and background noise are obstacles to solving this problem and, thus, in previous studies on experimental neurophysiology, only action potentials with sufficiently large amplitude have been detected and analyzed. In order to lower the level of SNR required for successful detection, we propose an action potential detector based on a prudent combination of wavelet coefficients of multiple scales and demonstrate its performance for neural signal recording with varying degrees of similarity between signal and noise. The experimental data include recordings from the rat somatosensory cortex, the giant medial nerve of crayfish, and the cutaneous nerve of bullfrog. The proposed method was tested for various SNR values and degrees of spectral similarity. The method was superior to the Teager energy operator and even comparable to or better than the optimal linear detector. A detection ratio higher than 80% at a false alarm ratio lower than 10% was achieved, under an SNR of 2.35 for the rat cortex data where the spectral similarity was very high.

Action Potentials↗