Anti-reflective Microengineered Substrate for in vitro Ultrasound Neuromodulation

Poor stimulus-response correlation, caused by acoustic reflections from conventional culture substrates, poses a significant challenge in cellular mechanistic studies of ultrasound neuromodulation. Existing specialized setups that mitigate this interference have limited recording capabilities. In this study, we propose an anti-reflective microengineered substrate (ARMS) that can be incorporated into a standard in vitro platform. The substrate’s dimensions and material composition were optimized in simulation. The optimized simulated platform exhibited an 86.3% reduction in reflection amplitude on the substrate surface compared to the conventional glass substrate. Furthermore, the ARMS reduced stimulation signal distortion to a 19.2% deviation from the expected amplitude, a substantial improvement compared to the 76.4% deviation observed with glass.