Recent Comments
Author Archives: P.T.R. Rupprecht
The cell-attached soundtrack of calcium imaging
Old-school electrophysiologists like to listen to the ephys signals during experiments. For example, this allows to precisely hear when the patch pipette approaches a target neuron. The technique is discussed in the Axon Guide: “Audio Monitor: Friend or Foe?”. The … Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, electrophysiology, Imaging, Neuronal activity, zebrafish
Tagged electrophysiology, Microscopy, photons, zebrafish
Leave a comment
Post-publication review: Somato-dendritic coupling of L5 neurons in V1
It requires more than a quick look at the abstract and the figures to fully understand a research paper and its limitations. One way to get there is to write a summary or critical review of a paper. In a contribution to … Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, electrophysiology, Microscopy, Reviews
Tagged Dendrites, electrophysiology, photons, theoretical neuroscience
4 Comments
Post-publication review: “Precise excitation-inhibition balance controls gain and timing in the hippocampus”
It requires more than a quick look at the abstract and the figures to fully understand a research paper and its limitations. One way to go there is to write a summary or critical review of a paper. In a contribution to … Continue reading
Photon yield and pulse dispersion
This case report describes how a two-photon microscope was found to come with a fluorescence yield that was lower than expected; how the underlying cause was found out in a systematic manner; and how the problem was solved. All approaches and solutions are specific for the microscope under question. However, I hope that this report (1) will inspire other people who are troubleshooting or optimizing their microscopes, (2) will help other people better understand two-photon microscopes and the relevance of technical details. Continue reading
The power of correlation functions
During my physics studies, I got to know several mathematical tools that turned out to be extremely useful to describe the world and to analyze data, for example vector calculus, fourier analysis or differential equations. Another tool that I find … Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, electrophysiology
Tagged Data analysis, electrophysiology, Matlab, Microscopy, Python
6 Comments
Annual report of my intuition about the brain
There are not many incentives for young neuroscientists to think aloud about big questions. Due to lack both of knowledge and authority, discussing very broad questions like how the brain works risks to be embarrassing at best. Still, I feel … Continue reading
Whole-cell patch clamp, part 4: look and feel
In previous blog posts, I have been discussing some aspects of whole-cell patch clamp recordings ([1], [2], [3], [4]). Today, I will show some instructive videos that I recorded during experiments. I’m hoping that they will convey the look and feel … Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, electrophysiology, Imaging, Microscopy, Neuronal activity, zebrafish
Tagged electrophysiology, Microscopy, photons, zebrafish
3 Comments
Precise synaptic balance of excitation and inhibition
The main paper of my PhD just got published: Rupprecht and Friedrich, Precise Synaptic Balance in the Zebrafish Homolog of Olfactory Cortex, Neuron (2018). (PDF) You might like it if you are also interested in Classical balanced networks Things you … Continue reading
Alvarez lenses and other strangely shaped optical elements
In typical microscopes, lenses or mirrors are moved forth and back to change the position of their focus. Tunable lenses like the electro-tunable lens or the TAG lens, on the other hand, are deformed by an external force and thereby … Continue reading
Entanglement of temporal and spatial scales in the brain, but not in the mind
In physics, many problems can be solved by a separation of scales and thereby become tractable. For example, let’s have a look at surface waves on water: they are rather easy to understand when the water wave-length is much larger … Continue reading
A blog about neurophysiology 