Concave-shaped transparent electrode to simultaneously monitor electrical activity from multiple sites within the optical sampling area of the intact rat cerebral cortex.

We have developed a concave-shaped transparent electrode unit that enables the placement of several electrodes within the optical sampling area on the spherical surface of the rat brain. This concave-shaped transparent electrode unit consists of an insulator base (a plano-concave lens) and a gallium-doped zinc oxide film that is a transparent conductor coating the base. Most of the unit is wrapped in an insulator film made of silicon dioxide, and the few areas left unwrapped act as electrodes. In the study reported here this newly developed transparent electrode unit worked well within the optical detection area without affecting optical recording. We applied this unit to our multiple-site optical recording system for membrane potential in order to eliminate pulsation artifacts and succeeded in optically recording spontaneous neural activity, including small changes in membrane potential, in the cerebral cortex in a single-sweep recording.