Current scaling behavior in electrical recording is dominated by the difficulty of fabricating systems with many high bandwidth channels. The objective of our research is a radically new and innovative approach of fabricating massive scale electrical recording setups. In our approach, a polished bundle of insulated metal wires (that act as recording electrodes) are pushed mechanically on the surface of a commercial amplifier chip used for high-speed infrared imaging. This allows us to tie into the massive progress happening in the imaging field. The long term goal of our research is to enable a paradigm shift, making the recording of massive amounts of neurons a cheap possibility. Our approach combines electrode design, innovative methods for electrical connections, and off-the-shelf read out integrated circuits (ROICs). The approach is innovative, because it uses a unique combination of techniques to produce a device that allows orders of magnitude more channels to be recorded at a fraction of the cost with unrivalled potential for future growth. The proposed research is significant, because it is a radical departure from current ways of conducting electrophysiological experiments. The far larger numbers of electrical channels promise to enable a broad range of new experiments, ever boosted by future improvements in imaging chip development. But above all, the planned methods should become compatible with recording from human subjects in the context of brain machine interfaces.
The proposed research is relevant to public health because it will result in a technology that promises electrical recordings from unprecedented numbers of neurons, enabling accelerated progress in wide areas of neuroscience including the development of prosthetics for humans. Hence, the proposed research is relevant to the part of NIH's mission that pertains to foster fundamental creative discoveries, innovative research strategies, and their applications as a basis for ultimately protecting and improving health.
