Student Presenter: Aakash Soni, Stevin Thomas, Sana Naeem, and Abdur-Rehman Hussain
Faculty Mentor: Jacqueline Keighron
School/College: Arts and Sciences, Old Westbury

Carbon fiber microelectrodes (CFMEs) are a useful tool in neuroscience to examine the release of neurotransmitters. A potential application of these microelectrodes unlocks when paired with a nanomaterial scaffold and an enzyme. At the moment, glucose oxidase is being used as a model enzyme with the intention of developing a sensor for glutamate oxidase. This combination can be used to directly quantify the release of the important neurotransmitter, glutamate. In this study, we have applied an electrochemical etching technique for our CFMEs which reduces the diameter of the tip, thus greatly increasing its ability to be inserted into interstitial spaces. This would allow our CFMEs to be wedged into spaces on the cellular level, specifically the synaptic cleft. Therefore, more accurate measurements of neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft can be conducted.