Category Archives: Imaging

Large field of view microscopes for mouse brain imaging

For typical confocal or two-photon microscopes that maintain (sub)cellular resolution, a high-magnification objective is needed (typically 16x, 20x or 25x). This in turn limits the field of view (FOV) to ⌀ 1.0-1.5 mm. For imaging in the mouse brain cortex, which is … Continue reading

Posted in Calcium Imaging, Imaging, Microscopy | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Spatial visualization of temporal components for neuronal activity imaging

The standard analysis workflow for neuronal activity imaging based on calcium signals is to 1) draw ROIs around putative neurons, 2) extract the average fluorescence time trace of this ROI, 3) work with this timetrace for subsequent analysis (principal components, … Continue reading

Posted in Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, Imaging, Neuronal activity | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Fast z-scanning using a voice coil motor

We just published a paper on fast remote z-scanning using a voice coil motor. For 2P calcium imaging. It’s a nice paper with some interesting technical details. The starting point was the remote z-scanning scheme used by Botcherby et al. (2012) from … Continue reading

Posted in Calcium Imaging, Imaging, Microscopy, Neuronal activity | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Modulating laser intensity on multiple timescales (x, y and z)

In point-scanning microscopy and especially when using resonant scanners, the intensity of the beam is typically modulated using a Pockels cell. For resonant scanning, the dwell time per micrometer is not constant along the scanned line, and one wants either to … Continue reading

Posted in Calcium Imaging, Imaging, Microscopy | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Neuroengineering blogs

Some neuroscience blogs that do not focus on biological questions (here’s a list on circuit neuroscience blogs), but rather on technical hurdles of lab work and how to overcome them. Here, I’d like to point out some blogs that are to … Continue reading

Posted in Imaging | 2 Comments