Optical Recording of Suprathreshold Neural Activity with Single-cell and Single-spike Resolution

Gayathri Nattar Ranganathan; Helmut J. Koester

doi:10.3791/4052

Journal

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Neuroscience

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Optical Recording of Suprathreshold Neural Activity with Single-cell and Single-spike Resolution

JoVE Journal
Neuroscience

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JoVE Journal Neuroscience

Optical Recording of Suprathreshold Neural Activity with Single-cell and Single-spike Resolution

11,805 Views

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08:48 min

•

September 05, 2012

DOI:

10.3791/4052-v

DOI:

10.3791/4052-v

•

08:48 min

September 05, 2012

•

2 Views

Gayathri Nattar Ranganathan¹, Helmut J. Koester¹

¹Section of Neurobiology, Center for Learning and Memory,The University of Texas at Austin

Summary

Understanding the function of the vertebrate central nervous system requires recordings from many neurons because cortical function arises on the level of populations of neurons. Here we describe an optical method to record suprathreshold neural activity with single-cell and single-spike resolution, dithered random-access scanning. This method records somatic fluorescence calcium signals from up to 100 neurons with high temporal resolution. A maximum-likelihood algorithm deconvolves the underlying suprathreshold neural activity from the somatic fluorescence calcium signals. This method reliably detects spikes with high detection efficiency and a low rate of false positives and can be used to study neural populations in vitro and in vivo.