Electrical measurements from large populations of animals would help reveal fundamental properties of the nervous system and neurological diseases. Small invertebrates are ideal for these large-scale studies; however, patch-clamp electrophysiology in microscopic animals typically requires invasive dissections and is low-throughput. To overcome these limitations, we present nano-SPEARs: suspended electrodes integrated into a scalable microfluidic device. Using this technology, we have made the first extracellular recordings of body-wall muscle electrophysiology inside an intact roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans. We can also use nano-SPEARs to record from multiple animals in parallel and even from other species, such as Hydra littoralis. Furthermore, we use nano-SPEARs to establish the first electrophysiological phenotypes for C. elegans models for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, and show a partial rescue of the Parkinson's phenotype through drug treatment. These results demonstrate that nano-SPEARs provide the core technology for microchips that enable scalable, in vivo studies of neurobiology and neurological diseases.

中文翻译：

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具有纳米级悬浮电极阵列的完整小动物的可扩展电生理学

大量动物的电学测量将有助于揭示神经系统和神经系统疾病的基本特性。小无脊椎动物是这些大规模研究的理想选择。然而，显微动物中的膜片钳电生理学通常需要侵入性解剖并且通量低。为了克服这些限制，我们提出了nano-SPEARs：集成到可扩展微流控设备中的悬浮电极。使用这项技术，我们已经在完整的round虫秀丽隐杆线虫内首次记录了体壁肌肉电生理学。我们还可以使用nano-SPEARs并行记录多个动物甚至其他物种（如九头蛇）的记录。此外，我们使用nano-SPEARs为肌萎缩性侧索硬化症和帕金森氏病的秀丽隐杆线虫模型建立了第一个电生理表型，并通过药物治疗显示了帕金森氏表型的部分挽救。这些结果表明，纳米SPEARs为微芯片提供了核心技术，从而可以对神经生物学和神经系统疾病进行可扩展的体内研究。