ABSTRACT
Recent advances in multi-electrode array technology have made it possible to monitor large neuronal ensembles at high resolution. In humans, however, current approaches either restrict recordings to only a few neurons per penetrating electrode or combine the signals of thousands of neurons in local field potential (LFP) recordings. Here, we describe a set of techniques which enable simultaneous recording from over 200 well-isolated cortical single units in human participants during intraoperative neurosurgical procedures using Neuropixels silicon probes. We characterized a diversity of extracellular waveforms with eight separable single unit classes, with differing firing rates, positions along the length of the linear electrode array, spatial spread of the waveform, and modulation by LFP events such as inter-ictal discharges and burst suppression. While some additional challenges remain in creating a turn-key system capable of recording, Neuropixels technology could pave the way to studying human-specific cognitive processes and their dysfunction at unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution.
Competing Interest Statement
K.V.S. is a consultant to Neuralink Corp. and CTRL-Labs Inc. (now a part of the Facebook Reality Labs division of Facebook) and on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Mind-X Inc., Inscopix Inc. and Heal Inc. The MGH Translational Research Center has a clinical research support agreement with Neuralink, Paradromics, and Synchron, for which S.S.C. and L.R.H. provide consultative input. B.D. and M.W. are employees of IMEC, a nonprofit research institute that manufactures, sells, and distributes the Neuropixels probes, at cost, to the research community.