Driving a green laser pointer with MicroManager
Posted in Hardware
Reminder: green laser pointers have a ton of IR in them. It needs to be filtered out if you don’t want it. See this old (2011!) Labrigger post.
Pixy computer vision for tracking mouse behavior
Pixy is an open source computer vision system. Mostafa Nashaat, Robert Sachdev, and colleagues including Matthew Larkum have developed software for use with the Pixy, that can be used to track mouse behavior, including free movement…
Analysis algorithms: performance quantification and ground truth
Posted in Software
We recently tweeted about a preprint from Eftychios A Pnevmatikakis and Andrea Giovannucci (code). The preprint is on motion correction for calcium imaging data. It is a nice quick read and discusses earlier work…
Intan CLAMP Patch Clamp Amplifier Systems
Posted in Hardware
Multiple people have asked for a discussion of Intan CLAMP patch clamp amplifiers. For those who are unfamiliar with them, they’re miniaturized patch clamp amplifiers. What looks like a headstage, is…
The breadboard you didn’t know you wanted
Posted in Hardware
It’s a microcontroller built into a breadboard. Actually, TWO microcontrollers. Both are Arduino-compatible. ATmega16U2 and ATmega328P.
It comes in both black, white, and pink because style matters.
P.S. The bottom side is…
Series resistance in patch clamp experiments
Posted in Tips
For teaching electrophysiology, there’s still a lack of comprehensive references. In particular, it can be difficult to impart to students an intuitive feel for the quality or fidelity of electrophysiological recordings. How close to the…
Imaging course at Max Planck Florida
Posted in Tips
Max Planck Florida is running their imaging course again and there’s still time to apply. They’ve got great faculty including Na Ji, Ryohei Yasuda, Yi Zuo, Chris Xu, Jeff Lichtman, Naomi Kamasawa,…
Pre-preprint: blogging a project
Posted in Uncategorized
SLAB is trying something new with one project in the lab. Prior to drafting a preprint, we’re blogging the project and sharing the results and analysis. We invite anyone to comment…
Allen Institute’s Brain Observatory data set
Posted in Uncategorized
The Allen Institute has released the first set of data from their Brain Observatory project. Many of you already know about this, but I wanted to post about it to encourage people to…
Tons of 2p spectra – twophotondyes.com
Posted in Tips
Daniel Fiole is curating a nice resource for 2p cross sections: twophotondyes.com
There’s a lot here. It’s not just dyes, he has links for fluorescent proteins as well, and there’s…
ReSpeaker – Funded, still-available kickstarter for adding voice control to your project
Posted in Hardware
In an earlier post, we discussed how surprisingly useful well designed voice control can be. There are open source software solutions for voice control, but they aren’t integrated with hardware, and there wasn’t really a kit to help one get started. Now there is.
Here’s an open…
SLAB is hiring postdocs – neurobiologists and engineers
Posted in Uncategorized
Just a reminder to anyone looking for a postdoc position: check out the “Now Hiring” link above. We’re looking for people who are pure neurobiologists, pure engineers, or any mixture of the two. Graduate…
Checking PMT performance over time
Posted in Tips
PMT performance can degrade over time. A friend asked mine recently ask for suggestions on how to check PMT performance. In a prior post, I mentioned that the Hamamatsu PMT Handbook talks…
H.G. Wells and tissue clearing
Posted in Uncategorized
This passage from H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man (1897) is an interesting way to introduce the concept of index-matching for tissue clearing. By making sure all of the material interfaces (e.g., lipids, intracellular…
Postdoc opening in Paris, Schmidt-Hieber lab
Posted in Uncategorized
Christoph Schmidt-Hieber’s new lab at the Pasteur in Paris will open later this year and he has an opening for a postdoc to study neural circuits for navigation and memory.
Labrigger has…