Wide-range, picoampere-sensitivity multichannel VLSI potentiostat for neurotransmitter sensing

Neurotransmitter sensing is critical in studying nervous pathways and neurological disorders. A 16-channel current-measuring VLSI potentiostat with multiple ranges from picoamperes to microamperes is presented for electrochemical detection of electroactive neurotransmitters like dopamine, nitric oxide etc. The analog-to-digital converter design employs a current-mode, first-order single-bit delta-sigma modulator architecture with a two-stage, digitally reconfigurable oversampling ratio for ranging the conversion scale. An integrated prototype is fabricated in CMOS technology, and experimentally characterized. Real-time multi-channel acquisition of dopamine concentration in vitro is performed with a microfabricated sensor array.