Robin is quite correct. As long as each recording requires an
electrode plus an amplifier plus some sort of display, the sheer
volume of labor involved in placing the electrodes and the equipment
is a significant limit. To really see the details of what a cell is
doing requires intracellular recording -- and doing that for more than
a few cells at a time is really out of the question.
Now if someone could develop a nice, non-toxic drug that changes its
optical properties with electrical potential, then you might infuse it
into a tissue and all the cells you see in the microscope would be
recordable simultaneously! That would be nice.
On Thu, 27 Sep 2001 17:55:23 +0100, "Robin Hayman" <ucgarmh at ucl.ac.uk>
wrote:
>There are methodological problems in recording from a large number of
>neurons - excluding recording via non-invasive measures such as MRI and PET
>etc. If you want to record the individual responses of a large number of
>neurons then this means placing an electrode(s) (or some related technique -
>i.e. tetrodes a la O'Keefe and place cells) near to the every cell(s) of
>interest. The fact that researchers have managed to record from 100's of
>neurons is a huge technological feat. Recording from large populations (in
>the range of 1000's) would mean placing massive bundles of electrodes into
>the area(s) of interest - an insult that a biological system (such as a
>freely behaving animal) would be unlikely to recover from to any useful
>degree. Similarly, placing electrodes and recording individual responses of
>neurons in culture would be so time intensive it is unlikely that the slice
>would be viable by the time the all electrodes had been placed.
>As for your plasticity question I'll let somebody else respond to that one!
>I hope this has helped.
>>>Nicholas King <nicholas.king at studentmail.newcastle.edu.au> wrote in message
>news:9ova8u$jnr$1 at seagoon.newcastle.edu.au...>> Now this seems to be the group to post too ,correct me if i am wrong but
>can
>> anybody tell me why there are only low ie 128 being the largest i can find
>> that interface to living neurons for sampling and recording?? Seems a bit
>> small to me if somebody wants to expreriment with large scale interaction
>> and coding of information... Ie how plastic is a set of neurons over a
>large
>> group?
>> Yours Sincerely Zeddie... Budding Cognitive Science researcher..Studying
>> Comp Sci.
>>>>>>>
