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Category Archives: electrophysiology
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
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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
Blue light-induced artifacts in glass pipette-based recording electrodes
Recently, I was carrying out whole-cell voltage-clamp and LFP recordings with simultaneous optogenetic activation of a channelrhodopsin using blue light. Whole-cell voltage clamp techniques can record the input currents seen by a neuron (previously on this blog [1], [2]); an … Continue reading
Posted in Data analysis, electrophysiology, Neuronal activity
Tagged Data analysis, electrophysiology
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How deconvolution of calcium data degrades with noise
How does the noisiness of the recorded calcium data affect the performance of spiking-inferring deconvolution algorithms? I cannot offer a rigorous treatment of this question (Update August 2020: Now I have treated this question rigorously.) , but some intuitive examples. … Continue reading
A convolutional network to deconvolve calcium traces, living in an embedding space of statistical properties
As mentioned before (here and here), the spikefinder competition was set up earlier this year to compare algorithms that infer spiking probabilities from calcium imaging data. Together with Stephan Gerhard, a PostDoc in our lab, I submitted an algorithm based on convolutional networks. Looking … Continue reading
Whole-cell patch clamp, part 3: Limitations of quantitative whole-cell voltage clamp
Before I first dived into experimental neuroscience, I imagined whole-cell voltage clamp recordings to be the holy grail of precision. Directly listening to the currents that take place inside of a living neuron! How beautiful and precise, compared to poor-resolution techniques like fMRI or … Continue reading
Posted in Data analysis, electrophysiology, Neuronal activity, zebrafish
Tagged Data analysis, electrophysiology, zebrafish
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Whole-cell patch clamp, part 2: Line-frequency pick-up via the perfusion system
With the experience of more than one year of patching (although you might say that this is not a lot), I’m now used to problems that I can solve after some time, but without being able to tell what the problem has … Continue reading
The crow as an animal model for neuroscience
Close to my apartment in the outskirts of Basel, green fields and some small woods lie basically in front of my house door. This is also where some flocks of crows gather around, partly searching the fields for food, partly … Continue reading
Posted in electrophysiology, Imaging, Neuronal activity, Uncategorized
Tagged consciousness, electrophysiology, zebrafish
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Whole-cell patch clamp, part 1: introductory reading
Ever since I my interested in neuroscience become more serious, I was fascinated by the patch clamp technique, especially applied for the whole cell. Calcium imaging or multi-channel electrophysiology (recent review) is the way to go in order to get an idea what … Continue reading
Posted in electrophysiology, Microscopy, zebrafish
Tagged Calcium Imaging, electrophysiology, patch clamp, zebrafish
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