D-135 | Development, construction and characterization of electrodes to perform electrocorticography in songbirds during sleep.

Tools Development and Open Source Neuroscience
Author: Nahuel Contureyuzon Colomes | Email: nahuel.colomes@hotmail.com

Nahuel Contureyuzón Colomes^1°, Ana Amador^1°2°

^1° Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Departamento de Física, Ciudad Universitaria, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina.
^2° CONICET – Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Física Interdisciplinaria y Aplicada (INFINA), Ciudad Universitaria, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Songbirds share several sleep characteristics with mammals, in particular the set of complex electroencephalogram patterns that occur naturally during sleep. Specifically, in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), slow wave sleep (SWS), rapid eye movement (REM) and an intermediate sleep (IS) stage that commonly occurs at transitions between other stages have been observed during sleep. As a first step in the study of sleep stages in songbirds, we present the process of construction and characterization of electrocorticographic (ECOG) electrodes. The electrodes are characterized according to their shape, contact area and impedance. In this work we show a robust and low-cost construction process that allows to produce ECOG electrodes for recordings in small animals.