Song Wei-Guo, Chai Jie, Han Tai-Zhen, Yuan Kui
Hi-Tech Innovation Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China.
Sheng Li Xue Bao. 2006 Apr 25;58(2):183-8.
This paper presents a remote controlled multimode micro-stimulator based on the chip nRF24E1, which consists mainly of a micro-control unit (MCU) and a radio frequency (RF) transceiver. This micro-stimulator is very compact (18 mmx28 mm two layer printed circuit board) and light (5 g without battery), and can be carried on the back of a small animal to generate electrical stimuli according to the commands sent from a PC 10 meters away. The performance and effectiveness of the micro-stimulator were validated by in vitro experiments on the sciatic nerve (SN) of the frog, where action potentials (APs) as well as artifacts were observed when the SN was stimulated by the micro-stimulator. It was also shown by in vivo behavioral experiments on operant conditioned reflexes in rats which can be trained to obey auditory instruction cues by turning right or left to receive electrical stimulation ('virtual' reward) of the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) in a maze. The correct response for the rats to obey the instructions increased by three times and reached 93.5% in an average of 5 d. This micro-stimulator can not only be used for training small animals to become an 'animal robot', but also provide a new platform for behavioral and neurophysiological experiments.
本文介绍了一种基于芯片nRF24E1的遥控多模微刺激器，它主要由一个微控制单元（MCU）和一个射频（RF）收发器组成。这种微刺激器非常紧凑（18毫米×28毫米双层印刷电路板）且轻便（不含电池时为5克），可以搭载在小动物背部，根据10米外电脑发出的指令产生电刺激。通过对青蛙坐骨神经（SN）的体外实验验证了微刺激器的性能和有效性，当微刺激器刺激SN时，观察到了动作电位（APs）以及伪迹。在大鼠操作性条件反射的体内行为实验中也得到了证明，大鼠可以通过在迷宫中向左或向右转来接受内侧前脑束（MFB）的电刺激（“虚拟”奖励），从而被训练服从听觉指令线索。大鼠服从指令的正确反应增加了三倍，平均在5天内达到了93.5%。这种微刺激器不仅可用于训练小动物成为“动物机器人”，还为行为和神经生理学实验提供了一个新平台。
