Wireless Telemetry of In-Flight Collision Avoidance Neural Signals in Insects
Abstract
Modern neuroscience research often relies on experiments using small animals such as mice and insects. For example, flying insects possess highly capable visual systems that perform complex, real time calculations to modulate flight control. The study of insect visual processing during the past half century has provided rich insight into biological information processing strategies. Measuring the weak extracellular electrical activity produced by neurons or electromyograms (EMGs) in muscles by traditional means has required large rack-mounted amplifiers and data acquisition systems. Due to the long wires connecting electrodes to remote amplifiers, most electrophysiology experiments must be performed inside a Faraday cage to achieve acceptable signal quality. Animals must be head-fixed or tethered during these experiments, which restricts the simultaneous study of neural activity and behavior. As electronics have been miniaturized, efforts have been made to create small, lightweight amplifiers and wireless transmitters to permit electrophysiological monitoring during free behavior. Early designs used discrete components to provide analog telemetry of EMG signals from large flying moths. Simple RF beacons have been used to track dragonfly migration. More recently, integrated circuits have been used to increase functionality (e.g., simulating neurons in flying moths.) To facilitate more sophisticated investigations into the neural control of behavior, we have developed an integrated circuit capable of amplifying two neural signals and two EMG signals from extracellular electrodes, digitizing these signals, adding parity bits for error detection, and wirelessly transmitting the digital information while operating from small, low-mass batteries.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA534182
Entities
People
- Fabrizio Gabbiani
- Haleh Fotowat
- Raymond Honfu Chan
- Reid R. Harrison
- Ryan J. Kier
Organizations
- University of Utah