Augmenting Insect Olfaction Performance through Nano-Neuromodulation

Biological olfactory systems are highly sensitive and selective, often outperforming engineered chemical sensors in highly complex and dynamic environments. As a result, there is much interest in using biological systems to build sensors. However, approaches to read-out information from biological systems, especially neural signals, tends to be sub-optimal due to the number of electrodes that can be used and where they can be placed. Here, we aim to overcome this sub-optimality in neural information read out, using a nano-enabled neuromodulation strategy to augment insect olfaction-based chemical sensors. By harnessing the photothermal properties of nanostructures and releasing a select neuromodulator on-demand, we show that the odour-evoked response from the interrogated regions of the insect olfactory system can not only be enhanced but can also improve odour identification.