16 – Multiple Microelectrodes

Publisher Summary This chapter presents an overview of the multiple microelectrodes. Multiple microelectrode recording is a procedure copied from nature. If one part of the brain needs information from another, many fibers interconnect both parts. The spatiotemporal spike patterns arriving in the target region are analyzed and, together with input from further sources, are transformed into other spike patterns. The main tasks of multiple microelectrode recording are detection and analysis of spatiotemporal activity patterns and spike train correlations. Both must, then, be related to events outside the brain and their structures must be determined. These goals set limits to the design of multiple microelectrodes. The following are some of the advantages of using multiple microelectrode: (1) many animals are saved; (2) results including movies are very instructive for demonstrations and teaching; (3) views on operating principles of the nervous system become more realistic; and (4) the researcher must reach a position where upon inspection of neuronal signals alone, sufficiently elaborate statements can be made, at least in limited contexts, about what is going on outside the brain.