SPACEBRAIN at Axona Ltd
Jim Donnett is the Managing Director. After a BSc and MSc in computer science (Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada), he completed a PhD in artificial intelligence (robotic navigation) at Edinburgh University, Scotland. He then moved to the Department of Anatomy & Developmental Biology at UCL to study applications of neural network models derived from behavioural neuroscience in controlling robotic systems. At the end of this project he joined O’Keefe’s lab, where he learned single neuron recording together with Kate Jeffery, and developed a multi-channel data acquisition system, Dacq. In 1998 he left UCL to found Axona and continue marketing Dacq full-time.
Over the last two years Donnett has re-designed Axona’s data acquisition system to become USB-based: DacqUSB is currently the only such system on the market, and is considerably smaller and cheaper than rival systems, making it more practical for labs to acquire larger numbers of systems and use these to train new researchers. The system also has enhanced capacity to interface with other equipment such as behavioral control devices.
Axona’s other main product is microdrives, which are used to advance tetrodes into the brain during recording. Microdrives are very highly specified: they need to be lightweight, able to advance the electrodes in extremely small steps, resistant to slippage and able to connect to lightweight cabling. Axona’s microdrives, based on a design published by Ainsworth and O’Keefe in 1977, have been very successful in this regard.
Donnett works closely with experimental scientists and has co-published with several labs. In the SPACEBRAIN project, he will develop multichannel microdrives for multi-site recording in the rodent brain and these microdrives will be miniaturized for recording in mice and young rats. A second major contribution will be the integration of optical and electrical recording systems, which will be performed in collaboration with UZH.
