Single unit recoding and action Part 1

Question 1

what is single unit recoding?

Answer 1

Recording from a single neuron using one or more microelectrodes

Question 2

Safety concerns with S.U.R. in humans

Answer 2

Highly Invasive

• requires direct access to brain
• trauma to scalp and skull
• risk of infection
• insertion of electrodes may damage brain tissue

High threshold for use

• already entering brain for medical reasons
• potential to address severe disability

Question 3

Ethical concerns with animals:

what is the points in favour of animal experiments?

Answer 3

Experimenting on animals is acceptible if suffering is minimized and human benifis are gained which could not be obtained by using other methods

Question 4

Reasons against animal experiments

Answer 4

it causes suffering
the benefits to humans is not proven
any benefit to human beings that animals testing does provide could be produced in other ways

Question 5

Types of recordings

Answer 5

Intracellular

• voltage clamp/current clamp
• patch clamp

Extracellular

• single unit recording
• Multi electrode recording
• field potentials

Question 6

challenges in Spatial and temporal resolution

Answer 6

How to find the right neuron

How does this neuron relate to the other 100 billion

Question 7

What is the cognitive map theory?

Answer 7

Memory for spacial relationships in environment

• place cells
  fire when animal is in a particular location
  -2014 Nobel prize in psychology

Question 8

What is one example of a benefit of SUR in humans?

Answer 8

Brain-machine interface

Question 9

What is an intracortical silicone microelectrode array used for?

Answer 9

to record from multiple units simultaneously

Question 10

what is an implanted tetrode?

Answer 10

4 wires going down with a signal coming from each

the distance from each neuron to each tetrode is a little different

each of these will receive signals from different electrodes and there will be overlap

Question 11

What is clustering

Answer 11

Finding AP that all look the same but are different from other ones