NEUROPIXELS NHP

Neuropixels NHP is a project sponsored by HHMI to produce probes for their investigator labs. Two probe types will be produced, both in two geometries. These probes are variants of Neuropixels 1.0, with much longer larger shanks. The final probe, 384 channels with shanks of 25 mm and 45 mm length having  2496 or 4416 recording sites, respectively (there are 6.5 or 11.5 virtual arrays of 384 pixels in the shank). As for Neuropixels 1.0, only 384 sites may be addressed at a time. Delivery of this probes will occur in August 2020.  If tests prove these probes to have the expected performance, they will be made available for sale to the community by imec, probably beginning in Q1, 2021. HHMI’s role will be complete. Check back here for details of performance, fixtures, and availability.  

A second probe type was produced, called an NHP demo probe. This passive device (no CMOS electronics) was made to test long shank fabrication yield.  The distal 128 sites, of the 2496 or 4416, are connected to bond pads on the 6x9 mm base and wired out to a zif connector flexible PC board.  Since there are no electronics, this probe can be used to record with conventional head stages and could be used to inject current using the 12x12 mm TiN site designed for recording. Testing of this stimulation function has just begun but seems promising.