Topic: freely behaving animals

To investigate the circuit-level neural mechanisms of behavior, simultaneous imaging of neuronal activity in multiple cortical and subcortical regions is highly desired. Miniature head-mounted microscopes offer the capability of calcium imaging in freely behaving animals. However, implanting multiple microscopes on a mouse brain remains challenging due to space constraints and the cumbersome weight of the equipment. Here, we present TINIscope, a Tightly Integrated Neuronal Imaging microscope optimized for electronic and opto-mechanical design. With its compact and lightweight design of 0.43 g,

The brain allows animals to make dynamic behavioral changes in response to changing internal or external demands. Determining precisely how this happens is challenging because existing methods for recording neural activity perturb natural behavior. With the recent advent of tracking microscopy, the larval zebrafish is an ideal vertebrate model for recording brain-wide cellular-resolution neural activity in freely behaving animals during natural behavior. However, current imaging methods such as structured illumination or light field microscopy, compatible with tracking microscopy, rely on high

From the first moments of life, social mammals become a part of a group. Over time they have “friends” with whom they prefer to spend time and “foes” whom they try to avoid. The ability to assess the dynamics of shifts in relationships is crucial to further our understanding of brain underpinnings of group behaviour. To investigate the stability of social bonds over time, we used groups of laboratory mice. Animals were kept in the fully automated, computer-controlled experimental environment (Eco-HAB) in which they could move freely and form social bonds. Eco-HAB system enables measuring the t