Research > Electrophysiology

Electrophysiology

I have been working on intracellular recording techniques. In particular, I invented the Active Electrode Compensation technique, to estimate and subtract the electrode voltage in single-electrode recordings (1-4); this was a strongly interdisciplinary project involving theoreticians (in particular Alain Destexhe) and experimentalists (in particular Zuzanna Piwkowska and Thierry Bal). We have been developing, testing and applying the technique in various experimental setups. This work was supported by the ANR grant HR-CORTEX.

Recently in my group, we developed another electrode compensation technique based on model fitting, which can track time-varying properties of the electrode (5).

I also edited a book entitled "Handbook of neural activity measurement" (Cambridge University Press, coedited with Alain Destexhe) (6), about modelling neural measurements, in which I wrote the chapter about intracellular electrophysiology (7).

Relevant publications:

1. Brette, R., Piwkowska, Z., Rudolph, M., Bal, and A. Destexhe (2007). A non-parametric electrode model for intracellular recording. Neurocomputing 70(10-12): 1597-1601 (Conference proceedings, CNS 2006, Edinburgh, UK).
2. Brette et al (2008). High-resolution intracellular recordings using a real-time computational model of the electrode. Neuron 59(3):379-91.
3. Brette R, Piwkowska Z, Monier C, Gomez J, Frégnac Y, Bal T, Destexhe A (2008). Dynamic clamp with high resistance electrodes in vitro and in vivo. Chapter in Dynamic Clamp, Bal T and Destexhe A (eds).
4. Badel L, Lefort S, Brette R, Petersen CC, Gerstner W, Richardson MJ (2008). Dynamic I-V curves are reliable predictors of naturalistic pyramidal-neuron voltage traces. J Neurophysiol 99(2):656-66.
5. Rossant C, Fontaine B, Magnusson AK, Brette R (2012). A calibration-free electrode compensation method. J Neurophys 108 (9), 2629-2639.
6. Brette R and A. Destexhe (eds) (2012). Handbook of neural activity measurement. Cambridge University Press.
7. Brette R and A. Destexhe (2012). Intracellular recording. Chapter in Handbook of neural activity measurement. Cambridge University Press.

is there!