Two Industry Partnerships Initiated to Fuel Neuroscience Research

Faster, more complex neural research is now attainable by combining technology from two research companies.

Blackrock Microsystems, LLC (Salt Lake City, UT, USA), a developer of neuroscience research equipment, announced partnerships with two neuroscience research firms—PhenoSys, GmbH (Berlin, Germany) and NAN Instruments, Ltd. (Nazareth, Israel) that will create a truly comprehensive set of tools for neuroscience researchers that should facilitate faster and more cost-effective research. Blackrock Microsystems will integrate specific technologies from PhenoSys and NAN Instruments to offer a fully cohesive range of electrophysiology research products.

“Our partnerships with PhenoSys and NAN instruments will fundamentally change the way neuroscientists work, so that regardless of the experiment the researcher dreams up, we can now empower them to perform it,” said Andy Gotshalk, CEO of Blackrock Microsystems. “Neuroscience research is often encumbered by mix-and-match components and complicated experiment setups. These partnerships will lessen time-consuming, expensive barriers and expedite research results so that we can achieve our ultimate objective of transferring those results into clinical practice for the millions of people facing devastating neurophysiologic challenges.”

Blackrock Microsystems’ miniaturized electrodes and amplifiers, and its data acquisition platform help researchers to perform experiments on nearly unencumbered subjects, thus yielding a clearer look into the brain's natural architecture.

PhenoSys’ technology allows researchers to construct virtual-reality mazes, where scientists can implement improvised alterations to experiments, leading to considerable cost savings of both time and money. Prior to this technology, researchers spent hours constructing physical mazes and other research environments.

“Our virtual-reality technology is already transforming neuroscience research,” said York Winter, PhD, CEO and co-founder of PhenoSys, and professor of cognitive neurobiology at Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany). “By teaming up with Blackrock Microsystems, we'll be able to help even more scientists conduct experiments that were previously thought impossible.”

NAN Instruments designs and manufactures the only electrode positioning system capable of moving individual electrodes fractions of a millimeter in a three-dimensional (3D) space. With this technology, neuroscientists can differentiate between neuron groups that were previously inseparable.

“NAN Instruments prides itself on providing flexible and reliable electrode drives,” said Nabeel Abunassar, CEO of NAN Instruments, Ltd. “Our collaboration with Blackrock Microsystems, leverages our combined strengths as leaders in the field of neuroscience research to provide integrated systems for our customers on a global scale.”

Blackrock Microsystems has become a world-leading provider of technology in the neuroscience, neural engineering, and neural prosthetics space. The company’s technology has been at the center of worldwide developments in brain machine interface), implantable bionic technologies and epilepsy diagnostics.

PhenoSys is a research and development company that engineers and markets advanced technology for automated animal behavior research. The PhenoSys investigators holds extensive expertise in electrical and mechanical engineering, computer science, and behavioral biology to create experimental systems used for behavioral phenotyping, brain research, experimental psychology, and diagnostic characterization of animal models for translational medicine.

NAN Instruments designs and manufactures devices for recording electrical activity from the brain and nervous system. The unique design of the company’s electrode positioning systems provides users with effective tools that allow manipulation of each electrode individually in 3D spaces.

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Blackrock Microsystems 
PhenoSys 
NAN Instruments