A Stand-Alone Platform for Prolonged Parallel Recordings of Neuronal Activity

In this work we report the development of a compact environmental chamber designed to perform prolonged recordings of the bioelectrical activity exhibited by neuronal networks grown on MicroElectrode Arrays (MEAs). The chamber was specifically designed to house several neuronal networks, in order to improve the experimental throughput. To reproduce an environment suitable for cells growth (in terms of temperature, pH and humidity) the chamber was coupled with a temperature control system and a gas warming and humidifying module. Validation tests demonstrated that the environment inside the portable chamber is comparable to standard cell incubators environment. To collect MEA extracellular signals, custom multichannel pre-processing boards have been developed and placed across the chamber top plate. Simulations and experimental tests demonstrated that the defined circuitry is well suitable to process neuronal spikes with overlapping thermal and biological noise. With this equipment, we were able to recorded spontaneous neuronal electrical activity from hippocampal cultures grown inside the chamber for several hours, which is not possible with the standard MEA recording setup due to environmental fluctuations. This system can collect multichannel data from neuronal cultures over long periods, providing an effective solution for long-term studies of neural activity.