Topic: multi-photon microscopy

Closed-loop neuroscience experimentation, where recorded neural activity is used to modify the experiment on-the-fly, is critical for deducing causal connections and optimizing experimental time. A critical step in creating a closed-loop experiment is real-time inference of neural activity from streaming recordings. One challenging modality for real-time processing is calcium imaging (CI) via multi-photon microscopy. CI enables the recording of activity in large populations of neurons however, often requires batch processing of the video data to extract single-neuron activity from the fluoresc

Previous research based on rodent models suggested that motor-related prefrontal areas mediate diverse functions including motor planning and cognitive functions such as decision-making, and also their flexible expression. However, whether neurons in these areas that mediate such functions are segregated populations or largely the same population are not clear. To address this question, in this study, we trained mice to perform distinct cognitive and motor task under head fixation while layer 2/3 (L2/3) neurons in the target area are imaged under multi-photon microscopy. In the cognitive task,