ShuttleDrive
The shuttleDrive is a chronic drive implant for extracellular electrophysiology that can be used to individually position up to 16 microwire electrodes or electrode bundles in mice, with up to 64 channels.
Description
This design is the successor to the flexDrive. and has improved build speed, robustness, size, and drive stability and linearity.
The implant weighs approximately 2 grams, so it can be used in freely moving mice. The small size and low center of gravity of the design also makes it possible to target off-center areas, or even to fit a drive implant under a microscope for simultaneous imaging and electrophysiology.
The flexible recording array geometry allows recordings from multiple brain areas. Individual lowering of each electrode makes it possible to hit deep and small targets.
The drive is easy to build, two or three drives can be built per day even with relatively little training. It accommodates arbitrary spatial arrangements of electrodes, and is compatible with a variety of recording systems.
Features
Channel count: 18 drives, up to 64 channels per drive.
Weight: ~2g for 16 tetrode drives.
Build time: < 1 day.
Travel distance: 4.5 mm
Fully enclosed mechanism
Low center of gravity
Easy and fast to assemble
Drive parts, tools, and accessories can be purchased from our online store.
Drive Components
To build a drive, you will need:
A 3d printed drive body
3d printed drive shuttles
Polymide guide tubes
Polymicro shuttle tubes
Custom screws (reusable)
Guide tube material
Electrode interface boards (for 64ch or 32ch omnetics headstages )
These are all available on our store.
Drive building is easier using our assembly jig and custom screwdriver, also available in our store.
Custom screwdriver (to move tetrodes up and down)
Assembly jig (to hold drive body and EIB in place during assembly and plating)
Building drives just got easy
Multiple innovative features make this drive design faster to build than any previous designs.
Even with little training, drives can be built from scratch in a few hours, and thanks to the new tetrode twister, making the electrodes is not a significant factor any longer. The main remaining step that takes up time is loading and gold-pinning the tetrodes - for that step you still need steady hands and some time.
<<<< Real-time video shows construction of 4 drive mechanisms and loading of a tetrode.
Citing the ShuttleDrive
When using the Open Ephys shuttle drive implants, please cite the paper:
Jakob Voigts, Jonathan P. Newman, Matthew A. Wilson, Mark T. Harnett (2019). An easy-to-assemble, robust, and lightweight drive implant for chronic tetrode recordings in freely moving animals
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/746651v1