About
Polina Anikeeva joined the department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the McGovern Institute as an associate investigator in 2018, and is also a professor in the Department of Material Sciences and Engineering. She obtained her PhD at MIT in 2009 and was awarded tenure in 2017. She is a recipient of an NSF CAREER grant and DARPA Young Faculty Award among other fellowships.
Research
Polina Anikeeva designs, synthesizes, and fabricates optoelectronic and magnetic devices to advance fundamental understanding and treatment of disorders of the nervous system. Anikeeva’s lab designs probes that are compatible with delicate neural tissue, but match the signaling complexity of neural circuits. In addition, her group develops magnetic nanoparticles for non-invasive neural stimulation. The ultimate goal of Anikeeva’s research is to better understand, diagnose, and treat brain disorders such as depression, Parkinson’s disease, and spinal cord injury.
Together with her Bioelectronics group, Anikeeva develops multifunctional fibers that can deliver electrical, optical, and chemical signals to specified neurons. These flexible probes are also capable of recording neural activity and delivering genes into the brain and spinal cord.
Anikeeva also investigates ways of stimulating neurons wirelessly and with minimal invasiveness, using magnetic fields to activate nanoparticles injected into specific regions of the nervous system.
Anikeeva applies these tools to study brain circuits relevant to motivation, anxiety, social interactions, and to spinal circuits in the context of recovery following injury. The ultimate goal of Anikeeva’s research is to better understand, diagnose, and treat disorders of the nervous system.
Publications
A. Kilias, Canales, A., Froriep, U. P., Park, S., Egert, U., and Anikeeva, P., “Optogenetic entrainment of neural oscillations with hybrid fiber probes”, Journal of Neural Engineering, vol. 15. p. 056006, 2018.
P. Anikeeva, Lieber, C. M., and Cheon, J., “Creating Functional Interfaces with Biological Circuits”, Accounts of Chemical Research, vol. 51. pp. 987-987, 2018.
B. Tian et al., “Roadmap on semiconductor–cell biointerfaces”, Physical Biology, vol. 15. p. 031002, 2018.
P. Anikeeva and Luo, L., “Editorial overview: Neurotechnologies”, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, vol. 50. p. iv—vi, 2018.
S. E. Mondello et al., “Optogenetic surface stimulation of the rat cervical spinal cord”, Journal of Neurophysiology, vol.120. pp. 795-811, 2018.