An easy-to-assemble, robust, and lightweight drive implant for chronic tetrode recordings in freely moving animals

© 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd. Tetrode arrays are a standard method for neuronal recordings in behaving animals, especially for chronic recordings of many neurons in freely-moving animals. Objective. We sought to simplify tetrode drive designs with the aim of enabling building and implanting a 16-tetrode drive in a single day. Approach. Our design makes use of recently developed technologies to reduce the complexity of the drive while maintaining a low weight. Main results. The design presents an improvement over existing implants in terms of robustness, weight, and ease of use. We describe two variants: a 16 tetrode implant weighing ∼2 g for mice, bats, tree shrews and similar animals, and a 64 tetrode implant weighing ∼16 g for rats and similar animals. These designs were co-developed and optimized alongside a new class of drive-mounted feature-rich amplifier boards with ultra-thin radio-frequency tethers, as described in an upcoming paper (Newman, Zhang et al in prep). Significance. This design significantly improves the data yield of chronic electrophysiology experiments.NIH (Grants R01NS106-031 and R21NS103-098)Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT (Fellowship R21-EY028-381)NSF (Award CCF-1231216)NIH (Awards 1F32MH107-086-01,TR01-GM104-948, R01-MH092-638