Abstract
Recording the activity of neural populations at high sampling rates is a fundamental requirement for understanding computation in neural circuits. Two photon microscopy provides one promising approach towards this. However, neural circuits are three dimensional, and functional imaging in two dimensions fails to capture the 3D nature of neural dynamics. Electrically tunable lenses (ETLs) provide a simple and cheap method to extend laser scanning microscopy into the relatively unexploited third dimension. We have therefore incorporated them into our Adaptive Spiral Scanning (SSA) algorithm, which calculates kinematically efficient scanning strategies using radially modulated spiral paths. We characterised the response of the ETL, incorporated its dynamics using MATLAB models of the SSA algorithm and tested the models on populations of Izhikevich neurons of varying size and density. From this, we show that our algorithms can theoretically at least achieve sampling rates of 36.2Hz compared to 21.6Hz previously reported for 3D scanning techniques.
Footnotes
This work was supported by EU FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network 289146, a Royal Society Industry Fellowship to SRS, BBSRC grant BB/K001817/1 to SRS, and by Scientifica Ltd.
R. Schuck, P. Quicke, C. Copeland, S. Garasto, L.A Annecchino, J. K. Hwang and S. R. Schultz are with the Centre for Neurotechnology, Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK. (e-mail: s.schultz{at}imperial.ac.uk).