Abstract
With the advent of optogenetics, it became possible to change the activity of a targeted population of neurons in a temporally controlled manner. To combine the advantages of 60-channel in vivo tetrode recording and laser-based optogenetics, we have developed a closed-loop recording system that allows for the actual electrophysiological signal to be used as a trigger for the laser light mediating the optogenetic intervention. We have optimized the weight, size, and shape of the corresponding implant to make it compatible with the size, force, and movements of a behaving mouse, and we have shown that the system can efficiently block sharp wave ripple (SWR) events using those events themselves as a trigger. To demonstrate the full potential of the optogenetic recording system we present a pilot study addressing the contribution of SWR events to learning in a complex behavioral task.
Footnotes
J.G.D. is affiliated to Axona Ltd, a company producing microdrives; however, J.G.D. was exclusively involved in the multi-step procedure of designing the microdrive and did not participate in the design of the experiments, data collection, and data analysis, and, correspondingly, did not exert any influence on the outcome of the experiments. All other authors declare no competing financial interests.
This work was supported by the Institute of Science and Technology Fellowship awarded to K.A.K. (Project: P IST EU01 under Research Executive Agency Grant 291734) and by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF01_I2072).
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