SLAB is moving to UCSB
Posted in Uncategorized
SLAB is moving to the University of California Santa Barbara this fall. UCSB is a great match for what SLAB has evolved into: about half neuroengineering and half neuroscience. The lab will…
Mirrors and lenses for multiphoton microscopes
Posted in Hardware
There’s been an interesting discussion on the Confocal listserv, and we’ll quote some of that discussion below. We’ve always used protected gold and silver mirrors for our multiphoton systems. That’s still what…
Finding out who cites your body of work
One of the most common ways that universities and institution use to evaluate scientists is to solicit letters of recommendation. But who should they ask? Of course former mentors will write letters. To…
A resonant-galvo-galvo module from Vidrio/ScanImage
Posted in Hardware
This could be handy for some of you. Resonant scanners are fast, but inflexible. You can’t tell them where to go. They just oscillate at a fixed frequency. All you can do is control…
Patents and academic research
Posted in Uncategorized
This is about the research exemption for patents. Early in my training, I was taught that academic researchers didn’t need to worry about patents, because they could build whatever they wanted for research purposes without…
Postdoc job: Zebrafish, Natural scenes, Thiele lab, Toronto
Posted in Uncategorized
The Thiele Lab at the University of Toronto is recruiting a Postdoc for the Fall to work with an HFSP team (UC Berkeley, Univ of Maryland, and Univ of Tübingen) that is…
Cleaning and storing lenses and optics
The easy ways aren’t usually the best ways. This might be an exception. Check out the video.
This is an interesting product for cleaning and storing lenses. It’s called “First Contact”, and is…
Custom touchscreen behavior systems for rodents
Lisa Saksida and Tim Bussey turned touchscreen systems into high throughput tools for rodent behavior assays. When I visited their lab in Cambridge (they’re now based at U Western Ontario in London, Canada, between…
Remote focusing with deformable mirrors
Posted in Hardware
There are lots of ways to quickly change the z-focus plane, including tunable lenses, piezo objective movers, and a coupled objective. What is the best way to change the…
Postdoc position at Imperial College London – optics, holography, neuroscience, optogenetics
Posted in Tips
Post by Amanda Foust
Applications are invited for the above post to work with Dr. Amanda Foust (Bioengineering department) and Prof. Pier Luigi Dragotti (Electrical and Electronic Engineering department) on a BBSRC funded…
Frontiers in Bioimaging 2018 in Glasgow
Posted in Uncategorized
Frontiers in BioImaging 2018 will take place on Wednesday 27 and Thursday 28 June at the Technology and Innovation Centre, Glasgow. It will focus on the latest developments in applications of…
Laser power modulation: EOMs and AOMs
Posted in Hardware
Fast laser power modulation in 2p systems is typically done with a Pockels cell. Conoptics sells one that is optimized for common Ti:Sapph systems, and that’s what many people end up using.
Pockels cells…
Detailed protocol for IV viral injections to drive systemic transgene expression
Posted in Papers
CRISPR/Cas9 technology has greatly accelerated the development of genetically engineered mice, but it’s still a big investment of time before the mice are ready. For quicker turnaround, there are other options (and speed isn’t…
Real-time tracking and 2p imaging with sub-ms timing
Posted in Papers
In this work, the authors used fast optical motion tracking and 2p imaging to measure the activity of individual neurons in freely moving animals. No surgery. No optical window. No restraint. And all the…
LabMaker – a retail source for some open source projects
Posted in Hardware
LabMaker sells parts, kits, and assemblies for open source neuroscience tools, including the UCLA MiniScope and Crystal Skull “coverslips”.
…