If you have one of the new systems (aka as the pizza box) you can now acquire imagery simultaneously from the port camera and the behavior cameras. During 2p imaging the behavior cameras are triggered at the beginning of a frame (TTL OUT 1x f.r.) or at the beginning and middle of a frame (TTL…
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A simple lick-o-meter and liquid reward delivery system
Some behavioral experiments reward correct performance. A typical response is a lick of a spout and the reward is a fixed volume of water. One simple way to achieve this is by using an Arduino board along with the capacitive sensing library. The diagram below summarizes the parts used. Just connect a 1 Mohm resistor between pins…
Read MoreUsing the quadrature encoder to track locomotion
Scanbox allows you to acquire the position of a rotating platform at each frame of the microscope. To do so, you need a quadrature encoder to be mounted on the axis of your platform. We use the US Digital HS-360-IE-S, but any quadrature encoder will do as well. The encoder needs to be wired to an Arduino…
Read MoreBlanking the laser between trials
Sometimes, during long behavioral sessions, it is advantageous to turn off the laser between trials to minimize damage while keeping the microscope scanning. To do this without introducing any additional noise that may influence the behavioral state we use the Pockels cell. Scanbox now allows one to blank the laser by sending a command over…
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