Researchers have demonstrated a new class of low-cost, scalable sensors that can be used to monitor electrical activity in human brain organoids. Because electrical signals are key to understanding brain function, this advance will facilitate research into both neurodevelopment and genetic diseases such as Angelman syndrome.
Human cerebral organoids are millimeter-sized tissues that are typically composed of cell types found in different regions of the brain. It is produced by culturing stem cells. These organoids are important for many research fields because they allow us to study the behavior of cells and tissues in the nervous system in ways that are not possible with animal models.
For example, Angelman syndrome is a genetic disorder that is associated with developmental delay, intellectual disability, language impairment, and movement disorders. Because researchers are unable to study the developing human brain, human cerebral organoids are a valuable platform for understanding disease-causing gene activity and developing treatments.
“Animal models don’t really capture the complexity of the human brain, which is one of the reasons why human brain organoids are attractive for brain research,” says Amay Bandodkar, co-corresponding author of a paper on the study and assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University.
“One of the challenges in human brain organoid research is that there can be large variations between organoid samples,” says lead author Navya Mishra, a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University. “As a result, it is important to obtain large numbers of samples to produce biologically meaningful results.
“However, the sensors currently used in organoid research are expensive, both due to their materials and the manufacturing process itself,” Mishra says. “This creates financial constraints and often results in researchers using fewer than 10 organoids for a given study.”
Our goal in this study was to develop a sensor that performs well, can be scaled up in an affordable manner, and is easy to use. ”
Albert Kuhn, co-author of the study and associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at North Carolina State University
To address these challenges, researchers developed a device called CAMEO (Conformal Array for Monitoring Organoid Electrophysiology). The device consists of 12 carbon nanotube strands suspended in the shape of a basket. The carbon nanotubes are processed in a way that preserves the material’s flexibility and sensitivity to electrical signals. In reality, organoids float inside CAMEO like eggs in a basket. The end of each strand is exposed, creating an electrode that can detect electrical signals from the organoid. The signal is then sent through the carbon nanotube strands to a device that can record the electrical activity.
In proof-of-concept tests, the researchers demonstrated that CAMEO can monitor electrical activity in organoids, detect low-amplitude signals important for biological research, and detect signal changes caused by chemicals that stimulate electrical activity in the nervous system.
“This research was very interdisciplinary and really benefited from Navya’s adventurous spirit in integrating principles of electrical engineering and neurodevelopmental biology,” Keung says.
“We showed that CAMEO’s performance is comparable to previous techniques used to monitor electrical activity in organoids,” Mishra says. “The big difference is that our microelectrode array uses relatively inexpensive materials and is less difficult to manufacture, so it costs much less. This makes it much easier to scale up and allows researchers to conduct studies on a much larger scale.”
“Hopefully, more labs will adopt CAMEO. Having a standardized data collection format will make it much easier for the research community to share data effectively because they can use the same plug-and-play system,” says Mishra.
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north carolina state university
Reference magazines:
Mishra, N. others. (2026). Carbon nanotube microelectrode arrays enable scalable and accessible electrophysiological recordings of cerebral organoids. npj biosensing. DOI: 10.1038/s44328-026-00088-9. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44328-026-00088-9
