Rolston John D, Gross Robert E, Potter Steve M
Department of Neurological Surgery, Emory University School of Medicine Atlanta, GA, USA.
Front Neuroeng. 2009 Jul 23;2:12. doi: 10.3389/neuro.16.012.2009. eCollection 2009.
Commercially available data acquisition systems for multielectrode recording from freely moving animals are expensive, often rely on proprietary software, and do not provide detailed, modifiable circuit schematics. When used in conjunction with electrical stimulation, they are prone to prolonged, saturating stimulation artifacts that prevent the recording of short-latency evoked responses. Yet electrical stimulation is integral to many experimental designs, and critical for emerging brain-computer interfacing and neuroprosthetic applications. To address these issues, we developed an easy-to-use, modifiable, and inexpensive system for multielectrode neural recording and stimulation. Setup costs are less than US$10,000 for 64 channels, an order of magnitude lower than comparable commercial systems. Unlike commercial equipment, the system recovers rapidly from stimulation and allows short-latency action potentials (<1 ms post-stimulus) to be detected, facilitating closed-loop applications and exposing neural activity that would otherwise remain hidden. To illustrate this capability, evoked activity from microstimulation of the rodent hippocampus is presented. System noise levels are similar to existing platforms, and extracellular action potentials and local field potentials can be recorded simultaneously. The system is modular, in banks of 16 channels, and flexible in usage: while primarily designed for in vivo use, it can be combined with commercial preamplifiers to record from in vitro multielectrode arrays. The system's open-source control software, NeuroRighter, is implemented in C#, with an easy-to-use graphical interface. As C# functions in a managed code environment, which may impact performance, analysis was conducted to ensure comparable speed to C++ for this application. Hardware schematics, layout files, and software are freely available. Since maintaining wired headstage connections with freely moving animals is difficult, we describe a new method of electrode-headstage coupling using neodymium magnets.
用于对自由活动动物进行多电极记录的市售数据采集系统价格昂贵，通常依赖专有软件，且不提供详细的、可修改的电路图。当与电刺激结合使用时，它们容易产生长时间的、饱和的刺激伪迹，从而妨碍对短潜伏期诱发反应的记录。然而，电刺激是许多实验设计不可或缺的一部分，对于新兴的脑机接口和神经假体应用至关重要。为了解决这些问题，我们开发了一种易于使用、可修改且价格低廉的多电极神经记录和刺激系统。64通道的设置成本低于10,000美元，比同类商业系统低一个数量级。与商业设备不同，该系统能迅速从刺激中恢复，并能检测到短潜伏期动作电位（刺激后<1毫秒），便于闭环应用，并揭示那些原本会被隐藏的神经活动。为了说明这种能力，展示了对啮齿动物海马体进行微刺激所诱发的活动。系统噪声水平与现有平台相似，并且可以同时记录细胞外动作电位和局部场电位。该系统采用模块化设计，每16个通道一组，使用灵活：虽然主要设计用于体内使用，但它可以与商业前置放大器结合，用于体外多电极阵列的记录。该系统的开源控制软件NeuroRighter用C#实现，具有易于使用的图形界面。由于C#在托管代码环境中运行，这可能会影响性能，因此进行了分析以确保该应用程序的速度与C++相当。硬件原理图、布局文件和软件均可免费获取。由于难以与自由活动的动物维持有线头端连接，我们描述了一种使用钕磁铁进行电极 - 头端耦合的新方法。
