Uncorrupted recording of neurons during microstimulation in situ : Cleaning out the artifacts

Abstract

An intractable limitation in electrophysiology has been the corruption of neural recording when electrical stimulation is applied within the same tissue. Because stimulation pulses corrupt the neural recordings with large artifacts, neural activity that falls within the time course of the artifacts are obscured or corrupted. Using an adaptive noise cancellation technique, we have developed a real-time method for recording neural activity during experimental microstimulation without interfering with the spectrum of the neural recording. We have developed the technique during in vivo extracellular recording in non-human primates while using microstimulation to activate or perturb ongoing behaviors. We can accurately recover action potentials during prolonged stimulation, regardless of the size, shape, or timing between action potentials and stimulation artifacts. Signal detection reliability for recovery of action potentials can achieve better than one error in 104. Analytical and preliminary experimental studies demonstrate the utility of the technique for intracellular recording as well. Electronic development supported by Riverbend Instruments, Inc.; JWG is supported by NEI (R01-EY015870, R03_EY016234 ) and NINDS (U54_NS039407).