MRI: Acquisition of a High-Density Microelectrode Array for Recording and Stimulating Hundreds of Neurons

布卢明顿的印第安纳州大学获得了一个奖项，以获得一个512微电极阵列仪器（512 MEA），用于记录和刺激脑组织样本中的电活动。512MEA可用于测量数百个神经元如何相互发送信息。在这种规模的网络中映射信息传输的能力预计是非常有价值的。许多理论预测，在学习后，暴露于成瘾药物或毒素后，癫痫发作后和创伤后，数百个神经元网络中的信息传递会发生变化。其他理论预测，大脑网络以接近最佳的方式处理信息，这一想法在很大程度上尚未得到验证。因此，512MEA的使用有望提供与理解学习如何发生、药物成瘾如何开始、毒物如何影响大脑健康、癫痫发作如何开始、大脑如何对损伤做出反应以及大脑如何优化信息处理相关的新知识。最终，这项工作可以通过帮助改善学校的教学和学习，帮助治疗癫痫患者，接触有害物质的人，退伍军人，以及提出设计类脑计算机的新方法来造福社会。为了最大限度地增加使用该设备的学生和实验室的数量，它将在物理系，脑和心理科学系以及医学院之间轮换。512MEA中心开设的研究和培训机会主要集中在两个研究主题上：（1）涌现特性，以及（2）信息传递。涌现特性：大脑的许多基本涌现特性，如模式识别、联想记忆、细胞组装的形成、神经元雪崩、同步脉冲和集体计算，预计首先出现在数百个相互连接的神经元群体中。虽然这些现象中的大多数已经被预测了几十年，但由于缺乏适当的仪器，它们在很大程度上仍未被探索。512MEA将允许对所有这些主题进行详细研究，其中许多是第一次。信息传递：我们几乎完全不知道网络中的信息传递在幼稚动物和有学习能力的动物之间、暴露于神经活性物质的网络和没有暴露于神经活性物质的网络之间、发展中的网络和成熟的网络之间有何不同。由于512MEA可以以毫秒级的分辨率记录神经活动，因此它可以识别在活动链中哪个脑细胞首先变得活跃。这种能力至关重要，因为它将指示神经元之间的影响方向。记录数百个神经元之间活动的光学方法通常不具有这种能力。因此，512MEA可以允许首次研究其中的许多主题。

An award is made to Indiana University, Bloomington, to acquire a 512 micro-electrode array instrument (512MEA) for recording and stimulating electrical activity in samples of brain tissue. The 512MEA can be used to measure how groups of several hundred neurons send information back and forth to each other. The ability to map information transfer in networks of this size is expected to be very valuable. Many theories predict that information transfer will change in networks of hundreds of neurons after learning, after exposure to drugs of addiction or toxins, after seizures and after traumatic injury. Other theories predict that brain networks process information in a nearly optimal way, an idea that has remained largely untested. Use of the 512MEA is therefore expected to provide new knowledge relevant to understanding how learning occurs, how drug addiction begins, how poisons affect brain health, how epileptic seizures start, how the brain responds to injury, and how the brain optimizes information processing. Ultimately, this work could benefit society by helping to improve teaching and learning in schools, by helping in the treatment of epilepsy patients, people exposed to harmful substances, war veterans, and by suggesting new ways to design brain-like computers. To maximize the number of students and laboratories using this device, it will be rotated between the Department of Physics, the Department of Brain and Psychological Sciences, and the Medical School. The research and training opportunities that are opened by the 512MEA center on two topics of investigation: (1) emergent properties, and (2) information transfer. Emergent Properties: Many basic emergent properties of the brain like pattern recognition, associative memory, formation of cell assemblies, neuronal avalanches, synchronized pulses, and collective computations are predicted to arise first in populations of hundreds of interconnected neurons. Although most of these phenomena have been predicted for decades, they have remained largely unexplored for lack of proper instrumentation. The 512MEA would allow all of these topics to be researched in detail, many for the first time. Information transfer: It is almost completely unknown how information transfer differs in networks from naive animals and those that have learned; between networks exposed to neuro-active substances and those that have not; between developing networks and those that have matured. Because the 512MEA can record neural activity at millisecond resolution, it can identify which brain cell became active first in a chain of activity. This ability is crucial, as it will indicate the direction of influence between neurons. Optical methods of recording activity between hundreds of neurons often do not have this capability. The 512MEA can thus permit many of these topics to be researched for the first time.