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Category Archives: Reviews
Annual report of my intuition about the brain (2025, part III)
How does the brain work, and how can we understand it? To approach this big question from a broad perspective, I want to report on some ideas about the brain that marked me most over the past twelve months and that, on the … Continue reading
Annual report of my intuition about the brain (2025, part II)
How does the brain work, and how can we understand it? To approach this big question from a broad perspective, I want to report on some ideas about the brain that marked me most over the past twelve months and that, on the … Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, closed-loop, Imaging, neuroscience, Reviews
Tagged brain, Calcium Imaging, electrophysiology, Microscopy, neuroscience
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Annual report of my intuition about the brain (2025, part I)
How does the brain work, and how can we understand it? To approach this big question from a broad perspective, I want to report on some ideas about the brain that marked me most over the past twelve months and that, on the … Continue reading
Interesting papers on astrocyte ultrastructure and function
Astrocytes are brain cells that are often completely overlooked and dismissed or, in the opposite extreme, presented as mysterious devices that somehow solve all problems of computational neuroscience. The truth is somewhere in the middle, but it is not clear yet where exactly. First of all, we still do not understand even the basic mechanistic rules by which individual astrocytes operate. For neurons, we have precise, often even mathematical ideas how they receive input via synapses, how they depolarize, and how depolarizations propagate to the soma and elicit action potentials. For astrocytes, this mechanistic book of rules is still missing – and this gap limits our ability to interpret experiments or build coherent theories. Continue reading
Posted in Astrocytes, Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, Microscopy, neuroscience, Reviews
Tagged Calcium Imaging, Microscopy, neuroscience, science
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Interesting papers on the role of cell organelles of neuronal dendrites in calcium signaling
Researchers utilize calcium imaging to track neuronal activity in the brain, highlighting the role of calcium as a signaling molecule. Recent studies investigate intracellular calcium dynamics, particularly its coupling between organelles and its influence on synaptic plasticity in dendrites. Findings emphasize the necessity of in vivo methods for accurate insights into neuronal behavior. Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, hippocampus, Microscopy, neuroscience, Reviews
Tagged Calcium Imaging, Microscopy
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Interesting papers on VIP interneurons in cortex and hippocampus
Interneurons are inhibitory neurons in the brain that are thought to shape the computations performed by principal cells. The effects of inhibition can be rather diverse, depending on which neurons – or which parts of a neuron (dendrites, soma, or … Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, hippocampus, Imaging, Neuronal activity, neuroscience, Reviews
Tagged Calcium Imaging, Data analysis
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Protocols to check the performance of your multiphoton microscope
In an exceptionally useful paper, Lees et al. provide a set of protocols for checking the performance of your multiphoton microscope: Standardized measurements for monitoring and comparing multiphoton microscope systems (link to preprint). The paper covers the following procedures: Check … Continue reading
How to use Google Scholar as a neuroscientist
Google Scholar is a search engine for scientific publications. There are alternatives like PubMed (not a search engine but a database, often used in the medical field), Semantic Scholar (also a database, but with richer annotations), Citation Gecko (to discover … Continue reading
Posted in neuroscience, Review, Reviews, writing
Tagged Literature search, neuroscience, science
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Annual report of my intuition about the brain (2024)
The brain is a complex system that cannot be understood by a strictly structured approach. Knowledge must grow organically, and a systematic approach can sometimes hinder understanding. In formal education, this truth is often hidden because curricula and instructors provide the structuring of knowledge already. But when it comes to acquiring new knowledge and insight, rather than merely processing and assembling pre-existing knowledge, this systematic approach must be continuously interrupted and re-invented to enable real progress. Continue reading
Posted in Data analysis, Neuronal activity, neuroscience, Reviews
Tagged brain, neuroscience, research, science, theoretical neuroscience, writing
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Four interesting papers on astrocyte physiology
A review of four interesting recent papers on astrocyte neuroscience: (1) Norepinephrine Signals Through Astrocytes To Modulate Synapses (2) A spatial threshold for calcium surge (3) Network-level encoding of local neurotransmitters in cortical astrocytes, and (4) Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, hippocampus, Imaging, Microscopy, Neuronal activity, neuroscience, Reviews, zebrafish
Tagged Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, Microscopy, zebrafish
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A blog about neurophysiology 