Open-Source Hardware For Neuroscience

the_newsbeagle (2532562) writes "The equipment that neuroscientists use to record brain signals is plenty expensive, with a single system costing upward of $60,000. But it turns out that it's not too complicated to build your own, for the cost of about $3000. Two MIT grad students figured out how to do just that, and are distributing both manufactured systems and their designs through their website, Open Ephys. Their goal is to launch an open-source hardware movement in neuroscience, so researchers can spend less time worrying about the gear they need and more time doing experiments."

Comments

less money yes, less time no

[Trepidity]

Their goal is to launch an open-source hardware movement in neuroscience, so researchers can spend less time worrying about the gear they need and more time doing experiments.

My experiences with lab-built equipment in academia suggest that building your own equipment is not really a good way to "spend less time worrying about the gear". Usually you will spend quite a lot of your time worrying about DIY gear. The advantages are not in time saved, but in two other things: 1) you can build gear that would be prohibitively expensive to purchase; and 2) you can customize it in-house.

Re:less money yes, less time no

[Thanshin]

Based on the comparative nature of "less", I would guess it depends on how much time one spends worrying about how to get the money to buy the prohibitively expensive equipment.

Re:less money yes, less time no

[mandginguero]

True, but imagine how bringing the cost down can lower the entry barrier for things such as teaching labs. My best course by far in undergrad was an electrophysiology course where we recorded action potentials in earthworms with just a couple electrodes and a differential amplifier hooked up to an old macintosh. Getting these technologies lower in cost may not alleviate quality concerns for high throughput research (which is what some of the quoted established company reps are saying in the article). But imagine how cheap the next iteration of these could be? An order of magnitude lower for the openBCI 8 channel EEG system http://www.openbci.com/. And with scalp potentials and a 512 hz sample rate you can measure muscle potentials too, not just brain. If you could find a way to increase the sample rate you could do things like galvanic skin response too.

Re:less money yes, less time no

[mandginguero]

you can use published results to validate your new equipment. if you can find the same trend in the data, same, and at least similar order of magnitude, then you are on the right path.

Re:less money yes, less time no

[gl4ss]

depends what you're trying to do.

if you're trying to prove that you can drive an rc car by reading inputs x123 and x124 and y984 and running them through such and such filter... then accomplishing that is the proof.

Re:less money yes, less time no

[sirlark]

Agreed! Firstly, as the P pointed out, a significant amount of time goes into getting grants to fund the experiments. This isn't going to go away, funding is still required, but it will mean that YOUR lab now has a chance of getting the grant, as opposed to the lab that already has the machine available for use because it was funded by the last grant. This means a wider variety of labs doing the science, which is a good thing. Also, having worked for a commercial science institute that really pushed the idea of 'brand name equipment saves you time and money', I can assure you, it's not the case. Our brand name equipment was ALWAYS down, waiting on a repair guy to be flown in from another continent, because the local guy didn't know how to fix it, or didn't have the parts. On top of that, we often had to run experiments multiple times because the results were suspect. The machine operator ended up with more repair skills than the first-level call out guy after about a year... that saved us time! So I'd say having in-house skills for maintaining your CORE equipment is a good thing. Open source design and hopefully some interchangeability in parts, a bonus!

Re:medical devices directive

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact I just checked their schematics.. no secondary isolation, and power taken from the USB or from an external PSU (not supplied or specified)

computer power supplies provide less isolation and allow higher leakage currents than a medical grade PSU, let alone one rated for BF. So it doesn't even meet basic electrical safety, let alone any other parts of IEC60601. I personally woun't want this used on me..

"Brain signals"

[RyanFenton]

This has always bothered me with the current state of neuroscience: The whole point of nerves/brain matter is to communicate/remember/transform information, but we're still relying on crude external cues like heat/bloodflow/electrical activity to tell us "somethings happening around...here", and that's pretty much it. It always bothers me when I hear the term "brain signals".

Nerves should be able to query their neighbors about their state, and the state of other nerves - otherwise, they wouldn't really be able to form something like a mind (as in, "the mind is what the brain does"). Why still can't we find a way to just "ask" the nerves what their state is?

Even in our simulations, we just represent nerves as nodes that grow associations - but those associations are useless, unless they can be traversed in queries by the system, to gather inputs, and send outputs at all levels.

Are we getting anywhere close to a stage where we can communicate with nerves to use that same communication system that logically must exist for it to function? Seems like even with limitations, that would be a LOT more useful than analogously inferring from traffic levels what the function of buildings in a city are, like we're doing now.

Ryan Fenton