We developed a new type of motorized microdrive array that satisfies these requirements for both rats and mice. Here we sought to develop microdrive arrays for smaller animals that allow flexibility with regard to the number and location of the recording sites and the number of microdrives themselves, while minimizing electrical wire connections and overall weight. Neither of these approaches is appropriate for use in smaller animals with large numbers of recording electrodes. These microdrives used either Piezoelectric actuators or relatively large stepping motors to realize electrode displacement. In addition, several larger motorized microdrives were designed for nonhuman primate experiments ( Cham et al. This method was sensitive to mechanical friction and did not address the technical problem of manipulating a large number of motors. 2005) used four DC motors controlled by short pulses to displace the electrode.
Although this motorized microdrive represented a significant technical improvement over conventional manually adjustable drives, several aspects of its design made it difficult to apply to recordings from multiple sites with independent control over a large number of motorized microdrives.Īnother small-scale motorized microdrive ( Venkateswaran et al. A modified version of this motorized microdrive was used to record from mice ( Luo et al. This technical advancement allowed adjustment during active behavior and eliminated the mechanical stress introduced by holding the animal's head during adjustment.
These microdrives must be small and light in weight, because of the physical limitations of the animal.įor songbirds, a miniature headstage with three micromotors was developed to adjust electrodes while the bird sang in a soundproof box ( Fee and Leonardo 2001). The recording devices used in these experiments use various kinds of manually adjustable microdrives, which rely on miniature screws or threaded rods to advance electrodes ( Gray et al.
Electrophysiological recordings taken from freely behaving animals with chronically implanted microelectrodes have played a critical role in our understanding of neuronal activity at the population level ( Fujii and Graybiel 2005 McCasland 1987 O'Keefe and Dostrovsky 1971 Ranck 1973 Taube et al.
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