Micropositioning System for the Study of Neural Activity in Free-Behaving Rats

Neural activity studies in small animals are widely employed in the biomedical research field. These studies are based on the use of micro positioning systems for microelectrodes called micro drives. This article describes the design, development and assessment of a micro drive used for studying neural activity in rats. The proposed micro drive is actuated by a small piezoelectric ultrasonic motor and the motion transmission is achieved by a simple mechanism. The device incorporates a closed-loop position feedback control system to get accurate movements by means of a linear Hall-effect sensor. The proposed system has a stroke of 2064 micrometers and a resolution of 1.3 micrometers, it weighs 2.5 g and it is 10 mm long, 7.6 mm wide and 13 mm high.