A scalable system for high-throughput and longitudinal electrophysiology in rodent brain research

精神障碍会引起复杂神经回路内活动的异常模式 我们的大脑。然而，开发人员通常不知道这些异常模式的确切性质 新的治疗方法。该项目的目标是使面向电路的研究能够 使用啮齿动物疾病模型研究神经精神疾病。长期目标是催化 为各种疾病发现新的治疗靶点，并为研究提供工具 神经编码中动物与动物之间的可变性。将开发一种新型研究工具，并 商业化，专门用于高通量、详细和长期的神经 在行为正常的小鼠身上进行测量。第一阶段使数据记录系统得以开发 原型足够轻，可以自由移动的鼠标携带，同时也很灵活 对脑组织具有微创的电极技术。在整个下一阶段--在 与德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校合作--小型化数据记录系统将进一步开发，以 优化重量、大小、成本和功能。各种探头参数将在体内进行测试以 为多个大脑区域创建目标优化的录制。最后，用户定制将是 通过基于Web的系统配置界面启用。通过实现高吞吐量和 长期记录，这个工具提供了一种实用的方法来研究电路的进程 使用动物疾病模型的大队列来研究功能障碍。

Psychiatric disorders give rise to aberrant patterns of activity within the complex neural circuits of our brains. Yet, the exact nature of these abnormal patterns is often unknown to developers of new treatments. The goal of this project is to enable circuit-oriented research of neuropsychiatric diseases using rodent disease models. The long-term objective is to catalyze the discovery of new therapeutic targets for a variety of disorders and to provide a tool to study animal-to-animal variability in neural coding. A new type of research tool will be developed and commercialized that is specialized for high-throughput, detailed, and long-term neural measurements in behaving mice. Phase I enabled the development of a data logging system prototype that is lightweight enough for a freely-moving mouse to carry as well as flexible electrode technology that is minimally invasive to brain tissue. Throughout this next Phase-- in partnership with UT Austin--a miniaturized data logging system will be further developed to optimize weight, size, cost, and capabilities. Various probe parameters will be tested in vivo to create target-optimized recordings for multiple brain regions. Final, user-customization will be enabled through a web-based system configuration interface. By enabling high-throughput and long-term recordings, this tool provides a practical way to study the progression of circuit dysfunction using large cohorts of animal disease models.