Rice ultraflexible neural interfaces

Rice University’s current faculty pages identify Lan Luan as Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Chong Xie as Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Neuroengineering. Their laboratories are distinct groups, not a single lab renamed here.

The Luan lab describes multimodal, bidirectional interfaces combining long-lasting electrical recording, optical imaging and neuromodulation. The Xie lab describes nanoscale neural interfaces, while Rice’s Xie faculty profile specifically lists ultraflexible NET recording, high-density acquisition and intracortical microstimulation as research directions.

Cataloged hardware

• Modular NET high-density arrays: the 2022 primary paper includes Rice affiliations. Its rodent configurations and follow-up belong to that hardware, not a completed human clinical system.
• StimNET stimulation thread: the 2023 published paper reports a stimulation-specific polyimide and iridium-oxide design, with a linked mouse application and explicit failures and limits.

The 2017 UT Austin NET work stays attributed to its original institution. Later faculty moves do not change a historical paper’s affiliation.

Evidence boundary

The lab websites describe research directions and goals. Long-term clinical usefulness, wireless integration and larger-scale human deployment are not treated as completed results. This brief does not assign a clinical trial, regulatory approval or therapeutic outcome to either lab.

Map coordinates are omitted because a university mailing address does not establish a precise laboratory location.

Primary sources

• Rice faculty profile: Lan Luan.
• Rice faculty profile: Chong Xie.
• Luan laboratory.
• Xie laboratory.
• 2022 modular NET paper and affiliations.
• 2023 StimNET published primary manuscript.