Topic: Neuropixels probes

How does a cat gracefully walk and suddenly freeze when spotting a mouse? In this talk, we look at how networks in the spinal cord generate movement. In particular, we address the fundamental yet poorly understood question of motor control: How can rhythmic movements, such as walking, be generated and stopped at any point in the cycle while posture is preserved? Since conventional models of spinal motor function rely on alternation between flexor and extensor modules, which are limited to just two phases, this question exposes the essential shortcoming of the conventional understanding: How ca

The availability of high-density electrophysiology is transforming systems neuroscience and enables virtually any experimental lab to simultaneously acquire activity from hundreds of neurons throughout the brain. However, extracting single-cell activity from the resulting large datasets remains a major challenge: different experimental settings introduce various sources of contaminating noise, and even optimized spike-sorting algorithms still require manual evaluation of the resulting spike clusters. Establishing a pre-processing pipeline and manual evaluation requires expert knowledge and is

Mammalian vision and visually-guided behavior relies on neurons distributed across diverse brain regions. In this talk I will describe our efforts to create tools that allow us to measure activity from these distributed circuits - Neuropixels probes for large-scale electrophysiology - and our findings from studies deploying these tools to study visual detection and discrimination in mice.

Recent advances in neuronal recording technology have facilitated the development of large-scale, high-density microelectrode arrays resulting in a substantial increase (>10x) in the number of neurons that can be studied simultaneously within a localized area of neural tissue. A prime example is the recent development of the Neuropixels probe, which consists of a high-channel count Si shank with continuous, dense, programmable recording sites (~1000/cm). Neuropixels probes have transformed neurophysiological studies in rodent models by enabling recording from large populations of neurons anywh

Sharp-wave ripples (SWRs) are thought to play a crucial role in memory consolidation, learning, and the formation of long-term memories by facilitating the transfer of information from the hippocampus to neocortical networks. To understand the mechanisms governing SWRs, we have developed a closed-loop stimulation framework tailored for the real-time detection and suppression of SWRs, leveraging the ONIX electrophysiology acquisition system and BONSAI-RX acquisition software. As part of our Bonsai package, we developed a convolutional neural network (CNN) for detection of SWRs recorded with lam