NeuroOne joins Dartmouth NIH grant for neurotransmitter sensing
NeuroOne Medical Technologies has entered into a subaward agreement with Dartmouth College, giving the Minnesota-based medtech firm a share of a $1 million NIH grant to advance next-generation neurotransmitter sensing technology. The first-year award, funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke through the NIH BRAIN Initiative, will direct approximately $200,000 to NeuroOne through April 2027, with further tranches expected over the following two years.
The wider collaboration draws together Dartmouth, the VA Medical Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and NeuroOne. Its stated aim is to translate recent laboratory advances in neurochemical sensing into tools that can be used clinically in humans, combining neurochemical measurement with established neural interface hardware.
The technology
Central to NeuroOne's role is its stereotactic EEG (sEEG) thin-film electrode platform, which the company says is already FDA-cleared for recording and stimulation applications. The grant project, formally titled "Translating Novel Carbon Coating Towards Integrated Sub-Second Neurotransmitter Sensors in Humans," will explore whether a carbon-coating approach can enable electrodes to detect neurotransmitter fluctuations at sub-second resolution alongside conventional electrical brain signals.
Simultaneous measurement of electrical and neurochemical activity is regarded in neuroscience circles as a meaningful capability gap. Current clinical tools capture local field potentials or single-unit activity but rarely provide concurrent neurochemical data in real time. If the carbon-coating technique can be validated in human-compatible hardware, it could offer clinicians and researchers a richer picture of brain states in conditions such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, and treatment-resistant depression.
Dave Rosa, chief executive of NeuroOne, described the award as evidence of the platform's versatility, adding that its flexible design and high-performance characteristics "create opportunities well beyond" the recording and stimulation uses for which it is already approved.
Market and competitive context
The neurotechnology sector has attracted sustained research investment in recent years, with the NIH BRAIN Initiative itself committing several hundred million dollars since its 2013 launch. Commercial players of varying scale, from large medtech groups to university spinouts, are developing neural interface systems with enhanced sensing modalities.
NeuroOne is a small-cap company listed on Nasdaq under the ticker NMTC, and the $200,000 subaward is modest relative to the capital requirements of a full clinical development programme. However, NIH-backed collaborations with academic medical centres carry independent scientific credibility and can accelerate the publication record and intellectual property position of a small company without diluting equity.
Regulatory read-across is also worth noting: the FDA has signalled interest in neurotechnology through its Digital Health Centre of Excellence and its evolving guidance on implantable neural interfaces, though no specific pathway for combined electrophysiology and neurochemical sensing devices has yet been established. The project's multi-centre structure, involving a VA Medical Center site, may also position it well for later translational studies in veteran populations with neurological and psychiatric diagnoses.
The next visible milestone for NeuroOne is continued progress through the grant's first phase and any publication of preclinical or early human data from the Dartmouth-led team. Investors will be watching for evidence that the carbon-coating approach holds up under the biotic conditions of implantable use.