Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences and Patrick Wild Centre, Edinburgh Medical School: Biomedical Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XD, UK.
Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences and Patrick Wild Centre, Edinburgh Medical School: Biomedical Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XD, UK; Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XD, UK.
J Neurosci Methods. 2023 Apr 15;390:109827. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2023.109827. Epub 2023 Mar 5.
In vivo patch-clamp recording techniques provide access to the sub- and suprathreshold membrane potential dynamics of individual neurons during behavior. However, maintaining recording stability throughout behavior is a significant challenge, and while methods for head restraint are commonly used to enhance stability, behaviorally related brain movement relative to the skull can severely impact the success rate and duration of whole-cell patch-clamp recordings.
We developed a low-cost, biocompatible, and 3D-printable cranial implant capable of locally stabilizing brain movement, while permitting equivalent access to the brain when compared to a conventional craniotomy.
Experiments in head-restrained behaving mice demonstrate that the cranial implant can reliably reduce the amplitude and speed of brain displacements, significantly improving the success rate of recordings across repeated bouts of motor behavior.
COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHOD(S): Our solution offers an improvement on currently available strategies for brain stabilization. Due to its small size, the implant can be retrofitted to most in vivo electrophysiology recording setups, providing a low cost, easily implementable solution for increasing intracellular recording stability in vivo.
By facilitating stable whole-cell patch-clamp recordings in vivo, biocompatible 3D printed implants should accelerate the investigation of single neuron computations underlying behavior.
在体膜片钳记录技术可用于在行为过程中获取单个神经元的亚阈值和超阈值膜电位动力学。然而，在整个行为过程中保持记录的稳定性是一个重大挑战，虽然头部固定方法常用于增强稳定性，但相对于颅骨的与行为相关的大脑运动可严重影响全细胞膜片钳记录的成功率和持续时间。
我们开发了一种低成本、生物相容且可 3D 打印的颅骨植入物，能够局部稳定大脑运动，同时与传统开颅术相比，允许对大脑进行等效访问。
在头部固定的行为小鼠实验中，证明颅骨植入物可以可靠地降低大脑位移的幅度和速度，显著提高了在重复运动行为过程中记录的成功率。
我们的解决方案提供了对现有大脑稳定策略的改进。由于其体积小，植入物可以改装到大多数体内电生理记录设置中，为提高体内细胞内记录的稳定性提供了一种低成本、易于实现的解决方案。
通过促进体内稳定的全细胞膜片钳记录，生物相容的 3D 打印植入物应加速对行为下单个神经元计算的研究。
