Brain Organoid

Electrical activity is a functional measurement that complements imaging and molecular assays. Published studies of human cortical organoids report spontaneous spiking, network oscillations that emerge and change over months of maturation, and responses to pharmacological perturbation (Trujillo et al. (2019); Sharf et al. (2022)). Two kinds of signal are typically recorded: spikes from neurons near a site, and the slower local field potential, which reflects population activity and network bursts.

An organoid is a volume, so the positions of the recording sites determine, in part, what is measured. A planar multi-electrode array records at the surface on which the organoid rests. A penetrating silicon probe places sites inside the tissue, which allows recording from a particular layer, comparison across depths, or several entry points into one organoid. NeuroNexus IntraSense+ is designed for this application. The organoid is held in a chamber inside a standard incubator and is returned to culture after the recording, so the same organoid can be recorded across days.