Gabriel Gagnon-Turcotte

A Wireless Headstage for Combined Optogenetics and Multichannel Electrophysiological Recording

This paper presents a wireless headstage with real-time spike detection and data compression for combined optogenetics and multichannel electrophysiological recording. The proposed headstage, which is intended to perform both optical stimulation and electrophysiological recordings simultaneously in freely moving transgenic rodents, is entirely built with commercial off-the-shelf components, and includes 32 recording channels and 32 optical stimulation channels. It can detect, compress and transmit full action potential waveforms over 32 channels in parallel and in real time using an embedded digital signal processor based on a low-power field programmable gate array and a Microblaze microprocessor softcore. Such a processor implements a complete digital spike detector featuring a novel adaptive threshold based on a Sigma-delta control loop, and a wavelet data compression module using a new dynamic coefficient re-quantization technique achieving large compression ratios with higher signal quality. Simultaneous optical stimulation and recording have been performed in-vivo using an optrode featuring 8 microelectrodes and 1 implantable fiber coupled to a 465-nm LED, in the somatosensory cortex and the Hippocampus of a transgenic mouse expressing ChannelRhodospin (Thy1::ChR2-YFP line 4) under anesthetized conditions. Experimental results show that the proposed headstage can trigger neuron activity while collecting, detecting and compressing single cell microvolt amplitude activity from multiple channels in parallel while achieving overall compression ratios above 500. This is the first reported high-channel count wireless optogenetic device providing simultaneous optical stimulation and recording. Measured characteristics show that the proposed headstage can achieve up to 100% of true positive detection rate for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) down to 15 dB, while achieving up to 97.28% at SNR as low as 5 dB. The implemented prototype features a lifespan of up to 105 minutes, and uses a lightweight (2.8 g) and compact

A Wireless Optogenetic Headstage with Multichannel Electrophysiological Recording Capability.

(17 \times 18 \times 10\ \text{mm}^{3})

Comparison of low-power biopotential processors for on-the-fly spike detection

rigid-flex printed circuit board.

A wireless optogenetic headstage with multichannel neural signal compression

We present a small and lightweight fully wireless optogenetic headstage capable of optical neural stimulation and electrophysiological recording. The headstage is suitable for conducting experiments with small transgenic rodents, and features two implantable fiber-coupled light-emitting diode (LED) and two electrophysiological recording channels. This system is powered by a small lithium-ion battery and is entirely built using low-cost commercial off-the-shelf components for better flexibility, reduced development time and lower cost. Light stimulation uses customizable stimulation patterns of varying frequency and duty cycle. The optical power that is sourced from the LED is delivered to target light-sensitive neurons using implantable optical fibers, which provide a measured optical power density of 70 mW/mm2 at the tip. The headstage is using a novel foldable rigid-flex printed circuit board design, which results into a lightweight and compact device. Recording experiments performed in the cerebral cortex of transgenic ChR2 mice under anesthetized conditions show that the proposed headstage can trigger neuronal activity using optical stimulation, while recording microvolt amplitude electrophysiological signals.

Multichannel spike detector with an adaptive threshold based on a Sigma-delta control loop.

Spike detection is a signal processing technique that can enable significant data rate reduction and resource savings in wireless brain monitoring. In these systems, energy-efficient spike detection algorithms are sought for enabling realtime signal processing while consuming low-power. As several spike detectors are based on ASIC, FPGA or low-power microcontroller unit (MCU), such algorithms must add little overhead to the entire system, while ensuring low error rate. In this paper, we present a comparative study of three different spike detection algorithms targeted toward implementation into low-power resource-constrained electronic systems. As practical validation, all candidate algorithms have been implemented on a popular low-power MCU and were fully characterized experimentally using previously recorded neural signals with different signal-to-noise ratios. A cost function based on detection rates, execution times, power consumption and resource utilization have been created and employed for comparing the detectors. The performances of all candidates are reported, and the best detector is identified. All candidate detectors present detection rate above 95% at high SNR, and above 78% for low SNR and can reduce the power consumption by up to 22.7%. This paper is the first to demonstrate the performances and hardware limitations of spike detectors on a low-power MCU system.

An optimized adaptive spike detector for behavioural experiments

This paper presents a multichannel wireless op-togenetic headstage providing neural recording and optical stimulation capabilities simultaneously. The proposed headstage, which is entirely built using commercial off-the-shelf components, includes 32 electrophysiological recording channels and up to 32 high-power optical stimulation channels. It can process 32 neuronal signals in real-time with high compression ratio using an embedded digital signal processor performing spike detection and data compression in-situ. The presented headstage is small and lightweight rendering it suitable for conducting in-vivo experiments with freely moving transgenic rodents. We report results obtained from in-vivo experiments showing that the proposed wireless headstage can collect, detect and compress the microvolts amplitude neuronal signals evoked by light stimulation with a high averaged peak-signal-to-noise ratio of 22.4 dB and a high averaged signal-to-noise distortion ratio of 17.0 dB. The design of this headstage is using a rigid-flex printed circuit board, resulting into a lightweight (2.8 g) and compact device (17×18×10 mm3).

Wireless sEMG-Based Body–Machine Interface for Assistive Technology Devices

In this paper, we present a digital spike detector using an adaptive threshold which is suitable for real time processing of 32 electrophysiological channels in parallel. Such a new scheme is based on a Sigma-delta control loop that precisely estimates the standard deviation of the amplitude of the noise of the input signal to optimize the detection rate. Additionally, it is not dependent on the amplitude of the input signal thanks to a robust algorithm. The spike detector is implemented inside a Spartan-6 FPGA using low resources, only FPGA basic logic blocks, and is using a low clock frequency under 6 MHz for minimal power consumption. We present a comparison showing that the proposed system can compete with a dedicated off-line spike detection software. The whole system achieves up to 100% of true positive detection rate for SNRs down to 5 dB while achieving 62.3% of true positive detection rate for an SNR as low as -2 dB at a 150 AP/s firing rate.

Development of electro-conductive silver phosphate-based glass optrodes for in vivo optogenetics

This paper presents the in vivo performances of a resource-optimized digital action potential (AP) detector featuring an adaptive threshold based on a new Sigma-delta control loop. The proposed AP detector is optimized for utilizing low hardware resources, which makes it suitable for real-time implementation on most common low-power microcontroller units (MCU). The adaptive threshold is calculated using a digital control loop based on a Sigma-delta modulator that precisely estimates the standard deviation of the neuronal signal amplitude. The detector was demonstrated using a common MCU from MSP430 family, incorporated into a small wireless platform for combined optogenetics and neura recording. The system has been fully characterized experimentally within in vivo experiments on a freely-moving transgenic mouse expressing ChannelRhodospin (Thy1::ChR2-YFP line4. The results demonstrate that the proposed AP detector can be used to achieve overall data reduction ratios above 11 hen transmitting only the detected APs. A comparison of the obtained results with other thresholding approaches shows that the pr posed detector provides similar performances to those significantly more resource demanding approaches.

Wireless brain computer interfaces enabling synchronized optogenetics and electrophysiology

Assistive technology (AT) tools and appliances are being more and more widely used and developed worldwide to improve the autonomy of people living with disabilities and ease the interaction with their environment. This paper describes an intuitive and wireless surface electromyography (sEMG) based body–machine interface for AT tools. Spinal cord injuries at C5–C8 levels affect patients’ arms, forearms, hands, and fingers control. Thus, using classical AT control interfaces (keypads, joysticks, etc.) is often difficult or impossible. The proposed system reads the AT users’ residual functional capacities through their sEMG activity, and converts them into appropriate commands using a threshold-based control algorithm. It has proven to be suitable as a control alternative for assistive devices and has been tested with the JACO arm, an articulated assistive device of which the vocation is to help people living with upper-body disabilities in their daily life activities. The wireless prototype, the architecture of which is based on a 3-channel sEMG measurement system and a 915-MHz wireless transceiver built around a low-power microcontroller, uses low-cost off-the-shelf commercial components. The embedded controller is compared with JACOs regular joystick-based interface, using combinations of forearm, pectoral, masseter, and trapeze muscles. The measured index of performance values is 0.88, 0.51, and 0.41 bits/s, respectively, for correlation coefficients with the Fitts model of 0.75, 0.85, and 0.67. These results demonstrate that the proposed controller offers an attractive alternative to conventional interfaces, such as joystick devices, for upper-body disabled people using ATs such as JACO.

A wireless system for combined heart optogenetics and electrocardiography recording

Multifunctional fibers are developed worldwide for enabling many new advanced applications. Among the multiple new functionalities that such fibers can offer according to their design, chemical composition and materials combination, the co-transmission of light and electrical signals is of first interest for sensing applications, in particular for optogenetics and electrophysiology. Multifunctional fibers offer an all-solid approach relying on new ionic conducting glasses for the design and manufacturing of next generation optrodes, which represents a tremendous upgrade compared to conventional techniques that requires the utilization of liquid electrolytes to carry the electrical signal generated by genetically encoded neuronal gated ion channels after optical excitation. After a systematic study conducted on different ion-conductive glass systems, silver phosphate-based glasses belonging to the AgI-AgPO3-WO3 and AgI−AgPO3−Ag2WO4 systems were found to be very promising materials for the target application. Several types of fibers, including single-core step-index fibers, multimaterial fibers made of inorganic and optical polymeric glasses have been then fabricated and characterized. Light transmission ranging from 400 to 1000 nm and electrical conductivity ranging from 10−3 and 10−1 S·cm−1 at room temperature (AC frequencies from 1 Hz to 1 MHz) were demonstrated with these fibers. Very sharp fiber tapers were then produced with high repeatability by using a CO2 laser optical setup, allowing a significant shrinking from the fiber (300 μm diameter) to the taper tip (25-30 μm diameter).