American University

10/31/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 10/31/2024 12:22

Professor Alexander Zestos’s Brain Sensors Headed for the Marketplace

Groundbreaking discoveries in the field of neuroscience are giving researchers dramatic new insights into how the human brain works. One of the ways they are making these breakthroughs is with new brain sensors like those designed by Alexander Zestos, bioanalytical chemist and American University professor of chemistry.

Zestos has teamed up with biotech company Spike Neuro, backed by a $988,054 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), to bring his sensors to market. The tiny sensors - no bigger than a human hair - act as probes to measure real-time changes in brain neurotransmitter levels-such as dopamine and serotonin-by measuring their electrochemical response. They hold great promise for helping researchers understand more about how the brain functions across critical areas of neuroscience, like how drugs affect different brain regions, how diseases like dementia progress, and why some people become addicts or suffer from depression.

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