Optogenetic Neural Interface for Non-Human Primates

Abstract

The non-human primate brain, which is similar to the human brain, plays a critical role in understanding of human brain circuits related to incurable diseases. Among the methods for studying the brain, optogenetics is widely used as a powerful way to reveal brain circuits by genetically coding certain parts of the brain and simultaneously performing optical brain stimulation and neural signal measurement. Although primate optogenetics in a free-moving state is important for complex brain related behavioral research, most of them were performed only under anesthesia due to engineering difficulties such as probe insertion method, full device implantation, wireless communication. To overcome the challenges, we fabricated a sucrose-coated long length flexible neural probe for insertion into the deep brain area with minimal invasion and also applied an optimized wireless communication protocol for fully implant operation. Finally, we developed a fully implantable wireless optogenetic neural in-terface for advanced research application such as behavior, cognition and emotional research in free-moving primates. Our integrated device shows the potential to research the control of higher behaviors leading to feeding behavior by regulating the LHA of primate's brain.