In 2013, President Obama created the Brain Initiative.  Gray Matter Research received one of the first Brain Initiative research grants in September 2014.  The Funding Opportunity Title was BRAIN Inititiave: Optimization of Transformative Technologies for Large Scale Recording and Modulation in the Nervous System (U01).  This is a 3 year grant to improve our existing electrode microdrives and add optogentic stimulation capability to the design.

Aim 1.  Several improvements were made to the electrode microdrive design.  The actuator block is now 3d printed.  This allows a form fitting bottom surface, curved electrode holes to reach tighter inter-electrode spacing and a more reliable actuator design.  The travel distance has also been increased to 42mm which allows electrodes to be driven to the ventral surface of a macaque brain.  Poster 2015

Aim 2.  We have a also designed and built a 32 channel drive with 18 optrodes and 14 electrodes.  The final revision is now being bench tested and will be tested in-vivo soon.  Poster 2016

Publications:

Gray et al. 2007.

Gray & Goodell, 2011.

Markowitz, 2011.

Salazar et al., 2012.

OrsbornWangPesaran,2015.

Qiao et al., 2016