Is the future of brain sensors and signals open-source or commercial? (Hint: Probably both)

Neu­ro­sci­en­tists Join the Open-Source Hard­ware Move­ment (IEEE Spectrum):

“Grad­u­ate stu­dents Josh Siegle and Jakob Voigts were plan­ning an ambi­tious series of exper­i­ments at their MIT neu­ro­science labs in 2011 when they ran into a prob­lem. They need­ed to record com­plex brain sig­nals from mice, but they couldn’t afford the right equip­ment: The record­ing sys­tems cost upward of US $60,000 each, and they want­ed at least four. So they decid­ed to solve their dilem­ma by build­ing their own gear on the cheap. And know­ing that they wouldn’t be the last neu­ro­sci­en­tists to encounter such a prob­lem, they decid­ed to give away their designs…(but) Andy Got­shalk, CEO of Black­rock Microsys­tems, in Salt Lake City, also argues that the com­mer­cial prod­ucts will con­tin­ue to be the gold stan­dard. “You’re not going to be mov­ing into FDA clin­i­cal tri­als using an Open Ephys sys­tem,” he says. The com­mer­cial prod­ucts come with guar­an­tees of qual­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty, he says, as well as inten­sive cus­tomer sup­port. Got­shalk says his cus­tomers are will­ing to pay a pre­mi­um for that backing.”

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