Neural data recorder from ADInstruments
data collection from animals and humans during drug candidate
testing by reducing noise and improving ease of use.
The new low noise, high gain neuro amplifier, the Neuro Amp EX, has been specifically designed for recording extracellular potentials from a wide range of sources. The high sampling rates allow recording of neuronal firing that exceeds the frequency of most other physiological signals. Neuroscientists often require high-quality, ultra low-noise recordings from animal and human subjects to achieve accurate results. However, data collection is often hampered by the fact that researchers are trying to measure tiny signals from biological samples in rooms filled with electrical noise from computers, equipment and overhead lights. ADInstruments is looking to minimise this noise with this latest addition to its PowerLab data acquisition and analysis systems. According to Matt Dilworth, marketing manager for ADInstruments, the quality of the recording set up is of critical importance to researchers who can spend hours trying to implant tiny electrodes into tissue preparations, animal brains or human muscle fibres. He continued by explaining that the private sector is becoming more cautious and is spending more time looking at the physiology and neurophysiology effects of drugs after high profile drug retractions. "Researchers realise that they need to study the macro neurophysiology. Even if they are starting out on the molecular level with drug discovery they still need to find out how it fits into with the nervous system," said Dilworth. "We think there is a tremendous market for this technology with all of the big pharmaceutical companies having whole departments dedicated to neuroscience." ADInstruments has designed the Neuro Amp EX to be safe for human use by ensuring that the headstage and amplifier are fully isolated from the mains power supply. The Neuro Amp EX comes supplied with a slimline headstage that provides pre-amplification gain of 100x along with a 10Hz filter that can be mounted on a micromanipulator for animal use, or taped directly to a human subject. Both the Neuro Amp EX and headstage can be controlled by the company's Powerlab data acquisition, storage and analysis software enabling simplified control and signal conditioning. "Our customers and users want this low noise, high signal to noise ratio recording set up for whole nerve animal recordings, split-fibre animal recording, microelectrode recordings from single brain neurons, sympathetic nerve recordings from human peripheral nerves and single unit recording from human muscle fibres," said Dilworth.
