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

[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.