Optical magnetic detection of single-neuron action potentials using quantum defects in diamond

Magnetic fields from neuronal action potentials (APs) pass largely unperturbed through biological tissue, allowing magnetic measurements of AP dynamics to be performed extracellularly or even outside intact organisms. To date, however, magnetic techniques for sensing neuronal activity have either operated at the macroscale with coarse spatial and/or temporal resolution-e.g., magnetic resonance imaging methods and magnetoencephalography-or been restricted to biophysics studies of excised neurons probed with cryogenic or bulky detectors that do not provide single-neuron spatial resolution and are not scalable to functional networks or intact organisms. Here, we show that AP magnetic sensing can be realized with…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Award: 1122374
• DO
  Division of Physics

  Award: 1504610
• DS
  Defense Sciences Office, DARPA

  Award: HR0011-11-C-0073
• AR
  Army Research Office

  Award: W911NF-15-1-0548