[hprotagonist]

I've done ephys in mice and gerbils. Spike sorting is nontrivial, and the effects on local tissue from jamming long shank electrodes into cortex are nothing i'd like done to me.

Unfortunately, less invasive recording techniques will never give you the ability to record from single units.

edit: pulled your google scholar and boy am I preaching to the choir...

[mattkrause]

And none of my array stuff is published yet (grrr!)

I did single-electrode experiments for my PhD and those definitely mess up the brain after a while. The Utah array stuff strikes me as "less bad" in there's only one* big insult to the brain, but it is a pretty bad one: the arrays are inserted with a pneumatic "gun".

I think you're right that non-invasive techniques will never give us single unit data, though I hope we can get some longer-lasting implantable electrodes soon.