Large-scale high-density brain-wide neural recording in nonhuman primates

Eric M Trautmann; Janis K Hesse; Gabriel M Stine; Ruobing Xia; Shude Zhu; Daniel J O'Shea; Bill Karsh; Jennifer Colonell; Frank F Lanfranchi; Saurabh Vyas; Andrew Zimnik; Elom Amematsro; Natalie A Steinemann; Daniel A Wagenaar; Marius Pachitariu; Alexandru Andrei; Carolina Mora Lopez; John O'Callaghan; Jan Putzeys; Bogdan C Raducanu; Marleen Welkenhuysen; Mark Churchland; Tirin Moore; Michael Shadlen; Krishna Shenoy; Doris Tsao; Barundeb Dutta; Timothy Harris

doi:10.1038/s41593-025-01976-5

Large-scale high-density brain-wide neural recording in nonhuman primates

Nat Neurosci. 2025 Jun 23. doi: 10.1038/s41593-025-01976-5. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Eric M Trautmann^{1

2

3

4

5}, Janis K Hesse^#⁶, Gabriel M Stine^#^{7

8}, Ruobing Xia^#^{9

10}, Shude Zhu^#^{9

10}, Daniel J O'Shea^{11

12

13}, Bill Karsh¹⁴, Jennifer Colonell¹⁴, Frank F Lanfranchi¹⁵, Saurabh Vyas¹⁶, Andrew Zimnik^{17

16}, Elom Amematsro^{17

16

18}, Natalie A Steinemann^{17

16}, Daniel A Wagenaar⁶, Marius Pachitariu¹⁴, Alexandru Andrei¹⁹, Carolina Mora Lopez¹⁹, John O'Callaghan¹⁹, Jan Putzeys¹⁹, Bogdan C Raducanu¹⁹, Marleen Welkenhuysen¹⁹, Mark Churchland^{17

16

18

20}, Tirin Moore^{21

22}, Michael Shadlen^{17

16

20

23}, Krishna Shenoy^{10

12

13

24

25

26}, Doris Tsao^{6

27}, Barundeb Dutta²⁸, Timothy Harris^{14

29}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA. etrautmann@gmail.com.
² Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. etrautmann@gmail.com.
³ Grossman Center for the Statistics of Mind, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. etrautmann@gmail.com.
⁴ Department of Neurological Surgery, UC Davis, Davis, CA, USA. etrautmann@gmail.com.
⁵ Meta Reality Labs, Seattle, WA, USA. etrautmann@gmail.com.
⁶ Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁷ McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁸ Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁹ Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹² Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹³ Bio-X Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹⁴ Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA.
¹⁵ Computation & Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
¹⁶ Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁸ Grossman Center for the Statistics of Mind, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁹ IMEC, Leuven, Belgium.
²⁰ Kavli Institute for Brain Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
²¹ Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. tirin@stanford.edu.
²² Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. tirin@stanford.edu.
²³ Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
²⁴ Neuroscience Graduate Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
²⁵ Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
²⁶ Department of Neurosurgery, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
²⁷ Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA.
²⁸ IMEC, Leuven, Belgium. barundeb.dutta@imec.be.
²⁹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 40551025
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01976-5

Abstract

High-density silicon probes have transformed neuroscience by enabling large-scale neural recordings at single-cell resolution. However, existing technologies have provided limited functionality in nonhuman primates (NHPs) such as macaques. In the present report, we describe the design, fabrication and performance of Neuropixels 1.0 NHP, a high-channel electrode array designed to enable large-scale acute recording throughout large animal brains. The probe features 4,416 recording sites distributed along a 45-mm shank. Experimenters can programmably select 384 recording channels, enabling simultaneous multi-area recording from thousands of neurons with single or multiple probes. This technology substantially increases scalability and recording access relative to existing technologies and enables new classes of experiments that involve electrophysiological mapping of brain areas at single-neuron and single-spike resolution, measurement of spike-spike correlations between cells and simultaneous brain-wide recordings at scale.

Grants and funding

NARSAD 29752/Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (Brain & Behavior Research Foundation)