Why not record from every electrode with a CMOS scanning probe?

George Dimitriadis, Joana P Neto, Arno Aarts, Andrei Alexandru, Marco Ballini, Francesco Battaglia, Lorenza Calcaterra, Susu Chen, Francois David, Richárd Fiáth, Shiwei Wang

Research output: Working paperPreprint

Abstract / Description of output

It is an uninformative truism to state that the brain operates at multiple spatial and temporal scales, each with each own set of emergent phenomena. Yet, a point, more worthy of attention, is the fact that our current understanding of it cannot clearly point to which of these phenomenological scales are the significant contributors to the brain’s function and primary output (i.e. behaviour). Apart from the seer complexity of the problem, a major contributing factor to this state of affairs is the lack of instrumentation that can address multiple scales at once without causing function altering damages to the underlying tissue. One facet of this problem is the fact that standard neural recording devices normally require one output connection per electrode. This limits the number of electrodes that can fit along the thin shafts of implantable probes generating a limiting balance between density and spread. Sharing a single output connection between multiple electrodes relaxes this constraint and permits designs of ultra-high density probes.

Here we report the design and in-vivo validation of such a device, a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) scanning, 1344 electrodes, probe; the outcome of the European research project NeuroSeeker. We show that this design targets both local and global spatial scales by allowing the simultaneous recording of more than 1000 neurons spanning 7 functional regions with a single shaft. The neurons show similar recording longevity and signal to noise ratio to passive probes of comparable size and no adverse effects in awake or anesthetized animals. Addressing the data management of this device we also present novel visualization and monitoring methods.

To help design electrode configurations for future, even higher density, CMOS probes, recordings from many different brain regions were obtained with an ultra-dense passive probe.
Original languageUndefined/Unknown
PublisherbioRxiv
Pages275818
Number of pages1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 Feb 2020

Publication series

NamebioRxiv
PublisherCold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

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