A Wireless, Bidirectional Interface for In Vivo Recording and Stimulation of Neural Activity in Freely Behaving RatsLiana Melo-Thomas 1,2, K.-Alexander Engelhardt 1, Uwe Thomas 3, Dirk Hoehl 3, Sascha Thomas 3, Markus Wöhr 1, Bjoern Werner 4, Frank Bremmer 4, Rainer K.W. Schwarting 1
1Behavioral Neuroscience, Experimental and Biological Psychology, Philipps-Universität Marburg, 2Behavioral Neurosciences Institute (INeC), 3Thomas RECORDING GmbH, 4Department of Neurophysics, Philipps-Universität Marburg
A wireless, bidirectional system for multi-channel neural recordings and stimulation in freely behaving rats is introduced. The system is light and compact, thus having minimal impact on the animal´s behavioral repertoire. Moreover, this bidirectional system provides a sophisticated tool to assess causal relationships between brain activation patterns and behavior.