Maybe “coverage” would have been a better term here? Like I’m thinking: if some future researcher recorded 100000 neurons in 1mm^3 of brain tissue, totally ignoring the rest of the brain, they would still presumably call it “large-scale brain recording” in their press release. :-P
Kernel, one of the most prominent commercial applications of BCI, uses functional near infrared spectroscopy fNIRS
I think Kernel has a fNIRS device (“kernel flow”) and an MEG device (“kernel flux”).
difficulty of listening in on individual neurons when there is scalp, fat, and skull in the way. With current technology, invasive techniques are necessary for recording from individual neurons: …
You don’t exactly say this, but your text here kinda suggests that ECoG records individual neurons, which is wrong. If anyone is curious: ECoG is basically the same as EEG but instead of putting electrodes on the scalp, you put them directly on the surface of the brain. ECoG spatial resolution is a few millimeters at best, I think.
Wait But Why, which of course is not an authoritative neuroscience source, uses “scale” to mean “how many neurons can be simultaneously recorded”. But then it says fMRI and EEG have “high scale”, but “low spatial resolution”—somewhat confusing since low spatial resolution means that fMRI and EEG don’t record any individual neurons. So, my gloss on “scale” is more like WBW actually is talking about, and probably is better called “coverage”. And then it’s best to just talk about “number of simultaneously recorded [individual] neurons” without giving that a shorthand—and only talk about that when we really are recording individual neurons. That’s what Stevenson and Kording (2011) do in “How advances in neural recording affect data analysis”.
Good call on Kernel, I’ll edit to reflect that.
Yep—invasive techniques are necessary—but not sufficient, as the case of ECoG shows.
A few little nitpicks:
Maybe “coverage” would have been a better term here? Like I’m thinking: if some future researcher recorded 100000 neurons in 1mm^3 of brain tissue, totally ignoring the rest of the brain, they would still presumably call it “large-scale brain recording” in their press release. :-P
I think Kernel has a fNIRS device (“kernel flow”) and an MEG device (“kernel flux”).
You don’t exactly say this, but your text here kinda suggests that ECoG records individual neurons, which is wrong. If anyone is curious: ECoG is basically the same as EEG but instead of putting electrodes on the scalp, you put them directly on the surface of the brain. ECoG spatial resolution is a few millimeters at best, I think.
Hi Steven, thanks!
On terminology, I agree.
Wait But Why, which of course is not an authoritative neuroscience source, uses “scale” to mean “how many neurons can be simultaneously recorded”. But then it says fMRI and EEG have “high scale”, but “low spatial resolution”—somewhat confusing since low spatial resolution means that fMRI and EEG don’t record any individual neurons. So, my gloss on “scale” is more like WBW actually is talking about, and probably is better called “coverage”. And then it’s best to just talk about “number of simultaneously recorded [individual] neurons” without giving that a shorthand—and only talk about that when we really are recording individual neurons. That’s what Stevenson and Kording (2011) do in “How advances in neural recording affect data analysis”.
Good call on Kernel, I’ll edit to reflect that.
Yep—invasive techniques are necessary—but not sufficient, as the case of ECoG shows.