Animal Behavior Guide

Here are some tips to for using the miniscopes to run experiments on freely moving mice.

Experimental Timeline

Plan you experiments schedule accordingly. Here is a typical timeline for getting mice ready for experiments in freely moving mice.

  -Week 1: virus injection surgery
  -Week 2: GRIN lens implant surgery
  -Week 3: recovery
  -Week 4: base plate surgery + acclimation to experimenters/handling
  -Week 5: habituation to wearing miniscopes & setting imaging focal plane
  -Week 6: begin experiment!

Acclimation to experimenters/Handling

We typically wait at least a day after base plate surgery to begin handling. We recommend that mice become well acclimated to the experimenters prior to mounting miniscopes on awake moving mice. It is important that the mice feel comfortable with the experimenters as stress during the mounting of the