InAuKa I - Development of Novel Multi-Contact Floating Microelectrodes for Neuroscience

Abstract:

InAuKa - “Interareal phase coherence as a mechanism for attention-dependent neuronal signal routing: A model-guided causal analysis using new, multi-contact floating silicon probes for intracortical chronic stimulation and recording in primates”.

The project works on the characterizing basic dynamic properties while processing visual stimuli in the brain and on developing realistic models for mechanisms taking place. The project’s results are essential for the development of visual neural prostheses, which enable patients with complete blindness to have a visual sensation.

Objective:

As part of the project, at IMSAS high-resolution and almost force-free, with the cortex moving multi-contact floating electrodes, will be developed, which are to be used for the chronic measurement of neural potentials and stimulation. With these neural implants the attention-dependent processing of visual stimuli will be studied and models for the occurring mechanisms of neural networks are to be developed.

Project description:

The brain consists of large neuronal networks that are densely inter-connected. Depending on context, task and selective attention, sub-networks become selected in such a way that specific computations are performed, which ultimately lead to appropriate behavioral output. In the process sensory signals are being selectively channeled through the brain. This becomes particularly evident in the visual system during selective attention. This poses a challenge to our understanding of the brain’s gating mechanisms. While the hypothesis, that coherent oscillations might underlie the selective routing of information through cortex, is consistent, there is still no model available to capture and integrate all relevant experimental results. In particular, it is still not yet decided if synchronization is in fact causally involved in the gating mechanism. In this project, neurobiologists, theorists and engineers are cooperating to attack these questions. To improve experimental access to and control of the networks under investigation, a fully implantable, virtually force-free floating multi-contact electrode needle array for chronic intracortical recording and stimulation in the primate cortex will be developed, tested and used simultaneously. This will allow high resolution electric and visual stimulation as causal instruments to directly manipulate mechanisms putatively underlying the attention dependent selective processing of behaviorally relevant input signals as well as the effective suppression of behaviorally irrelevant signals. The results will serve to characterize the fundamental properties of the network’s dynamic properties and will be used to build realistic models for the routing mechanisms.

 

Contact:

Dr. Andreas Schander
IMSAS, NW1, Raum  O-1110
Tel: +49 421 218 62590
E-mail: contact

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Walter Lang 
E-mail: contact

 

Official website    http://www.spp1665.de/projects_interareal.html

Publications:

Schander, A., et al. "Design and fabrication of novel multi-channel floating neural probes for intracortical chronic recording." Sensors and Actuators A: Physical (2016).

Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2016.05.034

Schander, A., et al. "Design and fabrication of multi-contact flexible silicon probes for intracortical floating implantation." Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems (TRANSDUCERS), 2015 Transducers-2015 18th International Conference on. IEEE, 2015.

Link: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=7181281

 

Associated institutes:

University of Bremen:

Brain Research Institute, Department of Theoretical Neurobiology: http://www.brain.uni-bremen.de/

Institute for Theoretical Physics, Department of Neurophysics: http://www.neuro.uni-bremen.de/


The project InAuKa started in 2013 and was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the priority program “Resolving and Manipulating Neuronal Networks in the Mammalian Brain - from Correlative to Causal Analysis” (SPP 1665).

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