Large-scale recording of thalamocortical circuits: in vivo electrophysiology with the two-dimensional electronic depth control silicon probe

Abstract

Fiáth R, Beregszászi P, Horváth D, Wittner L, Aarts AA, Ruther P, Neves HP, Bokor H, Acsády L, Ulbert I. Large-scale recording of thalamocortical circuits: in vivo electrophysiology with the two-dimensional electronic depth control silicon probe. J Neurophysiol 116: 2312-2330. First published August 17, 2016 doi:10.1152/jn.00318.2016.-Recording simultaneous activity of a large number of neurons in distributed neuronal networks is crucial to understand higher order brain functions. We demonstrate the in vivo performance of a recently developed electrophysiological recording system comprising a two-dimensional, multi-shank, high-density silicon probe with integrated complementary metal-oxide semiconductor electronics. The system implements the concept of electronic depth control (EDC), which enables the electronic selection of a limited number of recording sites on each of the probe shafts. This innovative feature of the system permits simultaneous recording of local field potentials (LFP) and single-and multiple-unit activity (SUA and MUA, respectively) from multiple brain sites with high quality and without the actual physical movement of the probe. To evaluate the in vivo recording capabilities of the EDC probe, we recorded LFP, MUA, and SUA in acute experiments from cortical and thalamic brain areas of anesthetized rats and mice. The advantages of large-scale recording with the EDC probe are illustrated by investigating the spatiotemporal dynamics of pharmacologically induced thalamocortical slow-wave activity in rats and by the two-dimensional tonotopic mapping of the auditory thalamus. In mice, spatial distribution of thalamic responses to optogenetic stimulation of the neocortex was examined. Utilizing the benefits of the EDC system may result in a higher yield of useful data from a single experiment compared with traditional passive multielectrode arrays, and thus in the reduction of animals needed for a research study. electronic depth control; silicon probe; high-density recording; thalamocortical oscillation; optogenetics DESPITE THE RAPID ADVANCEMENT of brain imaging techniques offering both high spatial and temporal resolution, electrophysiological tools are still widely used methods to investigate the complex spatiotemporal activity patterns of neuronal circuits. Over the past few decades, single-wire electrodes used for in vivo extracellular recording of action potentials evolved into multielectrode arrays covering the range of up to 1,000 recording sites NEW & NOTEWORTHY Recording the electrical activity of a large number of neurons located in the thalamocortical

Time Multiplexed Active Neural Probe with 1356 Parallel Recording Sites

“…Since the mammalian brain contains millions of neurons, it is essential to record the simultaneous activity of as many neurons as possible. State-of-the-art silicon-based probes can monitor the spikes of several dozen to a few hundred neurons at once [ 31 , 32 , 33 ]. To assess the single unit yield of the CMOS probe, we performed spike sorting on the data recorded in AP mode using a software capable to process high-channel-count recordings [ 34 ].…”

Wireless Ensembles of Sub-mm Microimplants Communicating as a Network near 1 GHz in a Neural Application

“…4g). In another neuromodulation example, we delivered fast 400 Hz stimulation pulse trains in 100 ms blocks, and were able to observe the characteristic neuronal bursting with increased post-stimulus firing rates described in literature [37,40] under ketamine anesthesia (demonstrated in Fig. 4h and Supplementary Fig.…”

Focal inputs are a potential origin of local field potential (LFP) in the brain regions without laminar structure

“…To validate this hypothesis, we performed the simulations of conductance-based models. First, we simulated LFPs in the cerebral cortex to examine whether the size of the observed LFP falls in the experimentally reported range [1,9]. Pyramidal neurons were randomly distributed with a density of 60 neurons in a cube with a side length of 100 μm [22] (Fig 2A).…”

“…Local field potentials (LFPs) have been reported not only in the neocortex [1] but also in the subcortical structures such as the striatum [2–5], thalamus [6–9], and other regions including the basal ganglia [10,11]. LFPs have been used to obtain information about sensory or cognitive processes that cannot be obtained by spikes only.…”