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A low noise remotely controllable wireless telemetry system for single-unit recording in rats navigating in a vertical maze

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Abstract

The use of cables for recording neural activity limits the scope of behavioral tests used in conscious free-moving animals. Particularly, cable attachments make it impossible to record in three-dimensional (3D) mazes where levels are vertically stacked or in enclosed spaces. Such environments are of particular interest in investigations of hippocampal place cells, in which neural activity is correlated with spatial position in the environment. We developed a flexible miniaturized Bluetooth-based wireless data acquisition system. The wireless module included an 8-channel analogue front end, digital controller, and Bluetooth transceiver mounted on a backpack. Our bidirectional wireless design allowed all data channels to be previewed at 1 kHz sample rate, and one channel, selected by remote control, to be sampled at 10 kHz. Extracellular recordings of neuronal activity are highly susceptible to ambient electrical noise due to the high electrode impedance. Through careful design of appropriate shielding and hardware configuration to avoid ground loops, mains power and Bluetooth hopping frequency noise were reduced sufficiently to yield signal quality comparable to those recorded by wired systems. With this system we were able to obtain single-unit recordings of hippocampal place cells in rats running an enclosed vertical maze, over a range of 5 m.

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Acknowledgments

This project was partially supported by grants from the National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O·C. (NSC93-2213-E-006-046) and from the National Health Research Institute of R.O·C. under contract no. NHRI-EX 95-9524E1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, 701 No. 1 Ta-Hsueh Road, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC

    Hsin-Yung Chen & Jia Jin Jason Chen

  2. Department of Family Medicine, Medical College, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC

    Jin-Shang Wu

  3. Department of Physiology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Brian Hyland & Xiao-Dong Lu

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  1. Hsin-Yung Chen
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  2. Jin-Shang Wu
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  3. Brian Hyland
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  4. Xiao-Dong Lu
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  5. Jia Jin Jason Chen
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Correspondence to Jia Jin Jason Chen.

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Chen, HY., Wu, JS., Hyland, B. et al. A low noise remotely controllable wireless telemetry system for single-unit recording in rats navigating in a vertical maze. Med Biol Eng Comput 46, 833–839 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-008-0355-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-008-0355-6

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