Optogenetic Stimulation & Electrophysiology System

BACKGROUND:
The current purchase will support the research projects of various laboratories working at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Ottawa with the goal of simultaneously recording neural electrophysiological activity from specific brain areas, stimulating neurons with light emitting diodes through optic fiber, and recording cardiac electrophysiological activity in conscious, free-moving mice or rats.
The optogenetic/EP system is a multiuser system that can support up to 4 investigators at a time. Each can have a portable unit for their own recording purposes (depending on electrode placement, optogenetic wavelength of stimulation). The only immobile part of this CFI is the surgery unit: stereotactic robot (for drilling and implanting the recording devices to mice/rats).
This optogenetic/EP system represents a new advance in optogenetic stimulation/intervention techniques in combination with in vivo electrophysiological recording development. This system enables large-scale sampling of many neurons simultaneously in several brain areas in free-moving awake animals while they behave. Importantly, this system enables large-scale chronic monitoring and correlating mouse behaviors and neural activities, up to 8 animals at a time. Furthermore, this new system enables long-term longitudinal studies to examine neural network plasticity, post-traumatic stress and anxiety and the efficacy of therapeutic interventions after stroke in real time while conducting behavior tests in preclinical small animal models. The requested system will complement the optical and PET techniques and is compatible with MATLAB for analysis.
PROCESS.
Suppliers who consider their equipment functional, successfully tested, readily available and fully compliant to the ACAN minimum requirements may submit in writing a statement of specifications to the contact person identified in this Notice, on or before the closing date of this Notice.  In the statement of specifications, the supplier must unequivocally demonstrate how their equipment, at minimum, equals, or exceeds the stated requirements.

If no other supplier submits a statement of specifications, on or before the closing date of this Notice, the competitive requirements of the University of Ottawa will be considered having been met.
Following notification to suppliers not successful in unequivocally demonstrating that their statement of specifications equals or exceeds the requirements set out in this Notice, the contract may then be awarded to the pre-identified supplier.
Date of issue: November 24th, 2022   
Closing Date: December 22nd, 2022, at 3:00:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time

INTENDED USE:
This state-of-the-art system capitalizes on the latest miniaturized electronic technology allowing a significant upscaling of the amount of electrophysiology data that can obtained from freely behaving mice, which is the mainstay species for optogenetics. Animals will be connected to the data-capture hardware by ultra-fine data cables and opto-patch-cords via highly sensitive electromechanically assisted opto-electro rotary joints to prevent cable twisting during behaviors. These elements each reduce the mechanical burden on the behaving mouse and together with the miniaturized implanted neural amplifier technology, these elements combine to facilitate naturalistic behaviors with minimal adverse impact on animal wellbeing throughout the experiment.
The optogenetic/EP system that will enable experiments in BOTH rats and mice, specifically allowing:
a) 4 independent users to operate in parallel
b) Multi-colour optogenetics in a single target or dual target (same color and/or different colors)
c) electrophysiology in a single target or dual targets, with 64 -128 channels in mice, and 64 – 256 channels in rats
d) seamless combination of electrophysiology and optogenetics, as outlined above. with photo-artifact-free electrophysiology probes.

Items needed:
1. In vivo electrophysiology and optogenetics suites* for 4 investigators simultaneously (each has a motorized rotary joint to enable optogenetic stimulation with fixed wavelength light from a Doric Laser diode and to record electrophysiological activity from freely-moving rats or mice from implanted miniatured, light-weighted reusable head stages).
*: each suite should contain: 512 Channel electrophysiology system including open-source software (1–30 kHz Sampling Rate Low Noise 2.4 μV rms; Large Input Range ± 5 mV), can accommodate up to 8 head stages on 4 tethers (or up to 4 128- channel headstages). Standardized digital headstage cables, USB 2.0 or 3.0 data transmission, 8 TTL inputs 8 TTL outputs, 8 analog inputs (±5V or 0–5V), 8 analog outputs (±5V), 2 Standardized I/O cables (PZN connectors), 1 USB camera (FLIR) and lens, Data acquisition laptop computer and monitor.

2. 50 sets of Chronic 64-channel H5 probes with Molex connectors, 1 shank, 9 mm length
3. 50 sets of Probe Tip Sharpening (Back-side grinding of probe shank tip(s))
4. 20 sets of Ultra-small-footprint 64-Channel Amplifier Board (w/ twin Molex connectors)
5. 18 sets of Implantable nano-Drive: 2x4x10 mm; ~7 mm travel; fiber optic compatible
6. 3 sets of Stereotaxic adaptors for holding Nano-Drives
7. 6 sets of 16-ml Gel kits of silicone artificial dura repair compound
8. 1 set of Robotic Automatic Stereotaxic Surgery System*
*: Computer controlled drill with stereotaxic atlas integration with high-speed axis motors, integrated microinjection and auto-stop drilling, remote control

9. 3 sets of Data storage virtualization system
10. 1 set of Surgery training and design and implementation of customized combined optogenetics and electrophysiology platform.
Justification of Pre-Selected Supplier:
Supplier: Cambridge Neurotech

Justification:
To our knowledge, the Cambridge NeuroTech, Inc. equipment identified above is the only one available on the market capable of meeting our requirements and those of the research project.
Elements of the combined optogenetics-electrophysiology system listed above are already being used in renowned laboratories across the neuroscience community, including the University of Oxford (UK; dual-target 128 channel electrophysiology implants in maze navigating mice, covering a maze area of 1.2 x 1.2 m) and at Columbia University (NY, USA) to facilitate 64 channel electrophysiology implants in freely-behaving birds with a bodyweight of 10g, approximately 1/3rd of a mouse bodyweight! A high-impact paper employing a development-version of this system can be found here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg2009.

University Contact:
Roger Wills
Approvisionneur principal, recherche | Senior Procurement Officer, Research
Strategic Project Management Group (SPMG) | Procurement Services
Université d'Ottawa | University of Ottawa
1 Nicholas (303)
Ottawa, ON  K1N 7B7
alopes@uottawa.ca
613-562-5800 (7113)

 

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