Submitted on September 3, 2008
Revised on October 4, 2008
Accepted on December 12, 2008
High-Resolution Three-Dimensional Extracellular Recording of Neuronal Activity with Microfabricated Electrode Arrays
Jiangang Du1, Ingmar H. Riedel-Kruse1, Janna C. Nawroth1, Michael L. Roukes1, Gilles J. Laurent1, and Sotiris C. Masmanidis2*
1 California Institute of Technology
2 California Institute of Technolog
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sotiris{at}caltech.edu.
Microelectrode array recordings of neuronal activity present significant opportunities for studying the brain with single cell and spike time precision. However, challenges in device manufacturing constrain dense multisite recordings to two spatial dimensions, whereas access to the three-dimensional (3D) structure of many brain regions appears to remain a challenge. To overcome this limitation, we present two novel recording modalities of silicon-based devices aimed at establishing 3D functionality. First, we fabricated a dual-side electrode array by patterning recording sites on both the front and back of an implantable microstructure. We found that the majority of single-unit spikes could not be simultaneously detected from both sides, suggesting that in addition to providing higher spatial resolution measurements than single-side devices, dual-side arrays also lead to increased recording yield. Second, we obtained recordings along three principal directions with a multilayer array and demonstrated 3D spike source localization within the enclosed measurement space. The large scale integration of such dual-side and multilayer arrays is expected to provide massively parallel recording capabilities in the brain.
