# Neural Signal Acquisition **Domain:** Neuroengineering / Signal Processing **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Maturity:** Established **Related:** [[Neural Interface]], [[BCI Metadata]], [[Multimodal Neural Data]], [[Neural Decoding]] --- ## Definition **Neural signal acquisition** is the measurement and digitization of neural or neural-adjacent activity together with the timing, sensor, device, subject, and session context needed to interpret it. Acquisition may measure electrical, magnetic, hemodynamic, optical, metabolic, or behavioral correlates. ## Architectural role Acquisition is the first layer of a neural-interface pipeline. Without synchronized metadata—sensor location, impedance, sampling rate, reference scheme, task state, and timestamps—the resulting signal may remain physically stored while becoming scientifically uninterpretable.