In vivo measurements with a 64-channel extracellular neural recording integrated circuit

Abstract

This paper presents in vivo measurements obtained from an implantable 64-channel neural recording Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) developed at IMSE and gives details of the computer interface used for real-time data acquisition. This interface connects the ASIC to a conventional 2.0 USB port by means of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Communications are bidirectional and employ custom protocols both for delivering commands to the ASIC and for recording neural information under different channel selection and operation modes. The link is controlled by a user-friendly programming interface written in C++ which includes a built-in routine to efficiently index and store the captured data. Measurements demonstrate the suitability of the ASIC for capturing local field and action potentials with two different microelectrode array platforms.