Recent Comments
Tag Archives: Microscopy
Fast scanning, triplet states and photon yield
In point-scanning microscopy like two-photon or confocal microscopy, a focused laser beam is scanned across the field of view and thereby sequentially recovers an image of the object. In this blog post, I will discuss the idea that scanning faster … Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, Imaging, Microscopy, Neuronal activity
Tagged Calcium Imaging, Microscopy, photons, Scanning, zebrafish
Leave a comment
Interview with Bruno Pichler
Bruno Pichler studied medicine, obtained a PhD in neuroscience, worked in the labs of Arthur Konnerth, Tom Mrsic-Flogel and Troy Margrie, and was R&D manager at Scientifica, before founding his own company, INSS, “to provide the international neuroscience community with … Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, Imaging, Microscopy
Tagged interview, Microscopy, Two-photon
1 Comment
Alignment tools
This blog posts covers some tools and techniques that I’m typically using to align two-photon microscopes. If you’re an expert, you will probably find nothing new, but if you haven’t been doing this for years, this might offer you some … Continue reading
Posted in Imaging, Microscopy
Tagged Alignment, laser scanning microscopy, Microscopy, Optics, Two-photon
2 Comments
A practical guide for adaptive optics
There is no standard curriculum to learn practical procedures about microscopy: how to align a setup, how to identify misalignments, how to identify broken parts, where to buy components, how to check their performance, and much more. How to learn … Continue reading
Review: An artificial ground truth for calcium imaging
Selected paper: Charles, Song, Tank et al., Neural Anatomy and Optical Microscopy Simulation (NAOMi) for evaluating calcium imaging methods, bioRxiv (2019). What is the paper about? Calcium imaging is a central method to observe neuronal activity in the brain of … Continue reading
Posted in Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, Imaging, Microscopy, Neuronal activity, Reviews
Tagged Data analysis, Microscopy, photons, PSF, Scanning
2 Comments
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
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
4 Comments
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
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
