Wearable MXene-Bioelectronics for Diagnostics and Personalized Rehabilitation

Real-time diagnosis of neural and neuromuscular diseases requires reliable and continuous monitoring. Wearable bioelectronics enable the necessary non-invasive electrophysiology sensing to study, diagnose, and treat neural and neuromuscular disorders. Multi-disciplinary advancements in materials, electronics, and biomedical engineering are enabling newer soft and flexible technologies for wearable electrophysiology sensing. However, current devices are limited by fabrication approaches that are expensive and do not scale, hindering immediate clinical translation.<br/>Here we leverage safe and scalable liquid-phase processing of two-dimensional (2D) Ti₃C₂T_x MXenes and infuse the nanomaterial into laser-patterned cellulose-polyester fabrics, to fabricate high-resolution bioelectronic interfaces (MXtrodes) for wearable electrophysiology sensing. Our fabrication paradigm allows the MXtrodes arrays to be highly versatile since their morphology, scale, and spatial distribution can be easy customized to be subject and application specific, giving them a major advantage over commercially available systems. Furthermore, MXtrodes exhibit low skin impedances without the need for any conductive gels, thereby increasing user compatibility and electrode stability. We demonstrate the clinical applicability of the MXtrode arrays by recording high-density surface electromyography (HDsEMG) patterns in the calf muscles during different tasks, from walking to controlled contractions. The high-density, high-sensitivity, and low-noise of the MXtrodes even during dynamic motions results in electrophysiology recordings with signal quality comparable with state-of-the-art commercial sensors, but with much higher accuracy and resolution. Our results underscore the application of MXene-based wearable bioelectronics in studying neuromuscular function and disease pathologies, as well as clinical rehabilitation paradigms.