© ISTOCK.COM/ARKELANeuroscientists have been sliding tiny electrodes onto neurons to record the cells’ electrical activities for more than five decades. The delicate technique has helped researchers discover features such as grid and place cells that animals use to navigate, and so-called concept cells that humans use to recognize specific faces.
In early setups, researchers used a single electrode—essentially, a pin attached to a computer chip—to record from single cells in brain tissue grown in a Petri dish or from the brains of freely moving mice or rats. But such recordings don’t capture the crosstalk between neurons that is fundamental to the complex brain processes that underlie cognitive functions, such as learning and memory. Ever more sophisticated probes being developed can simultaneously record electrical activity from hundreds or even thousands of neurons in animals as they go about their normal activities.
Electrophysiology in neuroscience is “blooming,” says Pierre Yger, a computational neuroscientist at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris. But as researchers seek to put an increasing number of electrodes into ...
