A High Resolution Bi-Directional Communication through a Brain-Chip Interface

Existing brain-machine interfacing techniques allow either high precision recordings from one or a few single neurons, or low spatial resolution recordings with a sparse sampling within the networks. Through our approach an efficient simultaneous bidirectional communication to the brain is realized using capacitively coupled recording and stimulation sites arranged in a large 2D multi-transistor array (MTA) with 1000 elements, integrated to a planar chip at high resolution (10mum pitch and below). The aim of the present work is to evaluate the reliability of a simple-generation silicon micro-device in recording neuronal signals from rat brain. Simultaneous recording of signals using this chip from the somatosensory cortex (S1) of living rat, are compared to standard in vivo recordings with a glass micropipette. We show that the two types of signals are identical, indicating the possibility to record signals at the same time from different sites and to perform a real-time electrical imaging of the brain cortex in vivo.