Towards real-time additive-free dopamine detection at $10^{-8}$ mM with hardware accelerated platform integrated on camera

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel, ultra-sensitive, real-time dopamine detection platform integrated into a camera, significantly surpassing existing methods in sensitivity and enabling portable, continuous monitoring for neurological research and medical diagnostics.

Contribution

The work introduces an innovative optical platform with engineered membranes and accelerators integrated into commercial cameras, achieving over two orders of magnitude improvement in dopamine detection sensitivity.

Findings

Detects dopamine below 10^{-8} mM in real-time

Improves detection resolution by over 100 times

Offers portable, continuous monitoring at video rates

Abstract

Tracing physiological neurotransmitters such as dopamine (DA) with detection limits down to $\mathrm{1\times10^{-8}}$ mM is a critical goal in neuroscience for studying brain functions and progressing the understanding of cerebral disease. Addressing this problem requires enhancing the current state-of-the-art additive-free electrochemical workstation methods by over two orders of magnitude. In this work, we implement an ultra-sensitive, additive-free platform exploiting suitably engineered light-scattering membranes and optical accelerators integrated into commercial vision cameras, reporting real-time detection of DA in uric and ascorbic acid below the concentration of $\mathrm{10^{-8}}$ mM. These performances improve the current best technology by over two orders of magnitude in resolution while providing continuous, real-time detection at video rates. This technology also upgrades the bulk form factor of an electrochemical workstation with an imaging camera's compact and portable footprint. The optical accelerator implemented in this work is universal and trainable to detect a wide range of biological analytes. This technology's wide adoption could help enable early disease detection and personalized treatment adjustments while improving the management of neurological, mental, and immune-related conditions.