Welcome to Backyard Brains

Backyard Brains offers a series of exciting and affordable entry‐level Brain Recording Kits that provide the ability for students of all ages to learn about neurons.

For the first time ever, school children and amateur scientists will have access to similar tools used by neuroscientists worldwide to study Electrophysiology: the electrical activity of neurons. By following a few simple steps, everyone can experience how the brain is able to communicate our senses, memories, hopes, and desires!

Watch the SpikerBox in Action!

In the spirit of summertime, Backyard Brains brings you a special video from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. Or, you can scroll down below for our standard commercial.

Want to know how the SpikerBox works? Let's take you through the steps of how to record your own neurons.

For those into nostalgia... We still have our first commecial available online.

How do our Brain Recording kits work?

Cells of the nervous system, called neurons, are specialized to carry "messages" through electrical pulses traveling down long extensions called axons. By using metal wires, it is possible to "eavesdrop" on this conversation. Our kit contains the tools to record from invertebrate animals (cockroaches, crickets, crawdads) by using a simple bio-amplifier and filter. The input of our kit connects to two neural probes which are placed into an insect. The output is neural activity, or "spikes", that can be heard via a built-on speaker, or seen via your computer.

Our SpikerBox

The SpikerBox is now in production and has been shipping to amateur and professional scientists and students wordwide. While you are waiting to get your hands on one, please take the time to view (and hear!) the SpikerBox in action:


Testing our first working prototype on a cockroach preparation.
Sorting out the 'spikes' from cockroach neurons

You can also listen to what neurons sound like above. In this recording, you hear many action potentials (or "spikes") from neurons in the cockroach leg that sound like "popping" or "rain". After about 5 seconds, small puffs of air are made onto the leg. The increase in pressure on the leg hairs, cause an increase in spikes. This is known as rate coding.

Want to try spike sorting neurons from a cockroach yourself? You can download the Matlab file of our first recording. We look forward to hearing about your results.