Microdrives and Tetrodes- We use microdrives from Axona, UK. They are stainless-steel material, so can be reused many times. We make our own tetrodes using platinum wire (with 10% iridium) from California fine wires (both 17um and 25um wires work well).
Recording Equipment- We mainly use Axona recording system, UK. In our experience it has excellent signal-to-noise ratio and is portable. It’s optimized for place cell and grid cell recording, but can be used for pretty much anything.
We also use the Intan recording system which is way cheaper than other competitors and a great option for labs on tight budget.
Software
For offline visualization of data and spike sorting we use TINT (Axona). TINT seamlessly integrates visualizing of animal’s behavior with neuronal firing. It comes with Klustakwik sorting algorithm and has many analyses built-in.
We have a batch processing routine for TINT that automatically does the spike sorting (using KlustaKwik) for all the folders in one go. See BatchTINTV3. We are currently testing the fully automated MountainSort sorting algorithm and will make MS to TINT routines available soon.
If you spend a lot of time manually curating spikes, try the gebaSpike sorter.
Check out our Python tool, hfoGUI, to visualize local field potentials (LFPs).
BrainWiki
BrainWiki is a web-based comparative neuroanatomy tool that compares the human and the mouse brain side-by-side. More information at brainwiki.org
Drop us a line if you need more information or have any comments or feedback.