Optogenetics

SignalBuddy is an easy-to-make, easy-to-use signal generator for scientific applications. Making friends is hard, but making SignalBuddy is easy. All you need is an Arduino Uno! SignalBuddy replaces more complicated and (much) more expensive signal generators in laboratory settings where one millisecond resolution is sufficient.

Understanding how the brain controls behavior requires observing and manipulating neural activity in awake behaving animals. Neuronal firing is timed at millisecond precision. Therefore, to decipher temporal coding, it is necessary to monitor and control animal behavior at the same level of temporal accuracy.

World Wide Series Seminar PiVR is a system that allows experimenters to immerse small animals into virtual realities. The system tracks the position of the animal and presents light stimulation according to predefined rules, thus creating a virtual landscape in which the animal can behave.

Pulse Pal is an open and inexpensive (~$210) alternative to pulse generators used in neurophysiology research, and is most often used to create precisely timed light trains in optogenetics assays.