Check out this compact 920 nm ultrafast fs laser for 2p imaging of GCaMP, etc.. Mounted on its side like this, it takes up very little space on the table. That's the Axon 920, generously loaned to the course thanks to @ewadorotaz.bsky.social and others at Coherent. It's what we use on our own rigs.

Che-Hang brought the Ventana, and @ianoldenburg.bsky.social brought the holography. All-optical 2p neurophysiology @cshlcourses.bsky.social A great collab. Summer courses are the best.

your L2/3 pyramids have www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBv5... (expectations) #kurtosis_summer

Spencer LaVere Smith@spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social · 2w ago

We can compute the number of photons/s/neuron, and this tells us how sensitively we can detect small events (changes in fluorescence). @filip-tomaska.bsky.social built a nice app for exploring how imaging parameters affect event detection ftomaska.github.io/phase-diagram/ (3/8)

Two-photon calcium imaging. What makes for good data? How can we optimize experiments to get good data? New post labrigger.com/blog/2026/07... and new free web apps from @filip-tomaska.bsky.social (1/8)

The summer course tour continues... Che-Hang and Ryan were at the MBL course before (bsky.app/profile/paci...) and now they're at the CSHL course. I'll be out there myself in early August.

Pacific Optica@pacificoptica.bsky.social · 2w ago

The turnkey Ventana Wide 2-photon imaging system is in service at the CSHL Imaging course. Dr. Che-Hang Yu is happy to share its capabilities. @cshlcourses.bsky.social

IBM just bought HRL in Malibu. Birthplace of the laser. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HRL_Lab... Source www.photonics.com/Articles/IBM... #infraredcoast #photonicscoast #quantumcoast

HRL Laboratories - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Also: We keep hearing that a number of Congressmembers think that everything at NIH has gone back to normal, and the Trump appointees are in fact on the side of saving NIH. That is false. Things at NIH are WORSE than last year. Please reach out to your senators and reps and tell them that.

There is demand for PhD-level labor in the US market. There aren't enough US-born people to fill the demand. Brilliant people born in other countries are joining the US to fill these jobs, pay taxes, and grow the US economy. These are world-class people who want to join our team. We welcome them.

Michael Clemens@mclem.org · 3w ago

Yesterday the US Administration supercharged its explicit effort to bar international students from staying in the US after graduation. All Americans should know: 1/3 of *all* STEM PhDs working in the US are immigrants who graduated from US universities, then stayed. www.piie.com/index%2Ephp/...

Ecological Visual Processing in the Mouse - with @michaelgoard.bsky.social @crisniell.bsky.social @mbeyeler.bsky.social Visual computations that are engaged in ecological contexts: active sensing, motion processing, scene analysis, distance estimation, and spatial perception. doi.org/10.1146/annu...

Yiyi's paper shows that correlated variability (aka "noise" correlations): 1. Are significant within and across cortical visual areas (shuffle trial control) 2. Precisely reproducible at the population level 3. Scale with signal correlations 1/3 elifesciences.org/articles/97848

I like that eLife is trying different things. One thing that is tricky is having multiple versions of a preprint and an eLife reviewed preprint. Indexers like Google Scholar don't always link to the most up-to-date versions. So it's nice when they get sync'd up! elifesciences.org/articles/97848

I made it to #FENS2026 in Barcelona and am looking forward to an week of catching up with people and the newest trends in neuroscience. I am happy to to chat a out all things multiphoton, including lasers, as well as woodworking and dinghy sailing. DM me or catch me at booth 145 to grab a coffee

It’s not too late to submit to NeuroXR 2026 @ieeeismar2026.bsky.social! We’re looking for work across XR, neuroscience, HCI, affective computing, neuroengineering, rehabilitation, BCIs, and assistive tech. Deadline: July 5, 2026, 11:59 PM AoE neuroxr-ws.github.io/www/

NeuroXR 2026 at IEEE ISMAR 2026

Workshop at IEEE ISMAR 2026

neuroxr-ws.github.io

“We fund people, not projects.” “We also cut funding for people we hired for projects we lost interest in.”

We're at the MBL in Woods Hole, MA. Stop on by if you want to try it out for yourself. 2-photon imaging over a 3 mm x 3 mm field-of-view. The most compact mesoscale 2p also has the fastest scanning! pacificoptica.com/ventana/ pacificoptica.com/cousa/

NIH BRAIN Initiative tool developers: Best wishes on your grant applications!

Labrigger Catechism for 2p calcium imaging 1. Get enough photons/s/cell. About 1000 - 10,000 photons/s/cell can be enough. 2. Make sure that your neuron signals are not completely swamped by neuropil. labrigger.com/blog/2026/06... (1/3)

Closing AI week with a conversation with @deanbuono.bsky.social on something that doesn't get said enough: brains & AI are both black boxes. Figuring out how each works & how they shape each other may be the defining scientific challenge of our time. #artificalintelligence #AI #neuroscience

If you're not replacing your PMTs every 6 months, you might as well opt for SiPMs. src: www.nature.com/articles/s41... sipm: opg.optica.org/oe/fulltext.... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

2-photon optics pros: Here's a job in Alipasha's lab at the Rockefeller in NYC. careers.rockefeller.edu/jobs/2040?la... Work on new multi-photon high-speed large-scale in vivo multi-photon optical neurotechnologies!

Great paper! Large scale 2p + behav. reveals that time codes in M2 and PPC can shift between coherent and ind. modes. Plus, their shared pop. dyn. are stratified: time info in a high-D subspace, and behav info in a low-D subspace. @riichirohira.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sam was friends with my PhD advisor and walked in seconds into my 1st patch clamp recording. He offered sincere congrats, connecting authentically. I’m happy to see that even his political rivals recognize how authentic Sam is. Victories come & go. Sustain the fight. I’m grateful for Sam’s work.

Sam Wang@samwang.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A great election night in New Jersey - and the surprising pleasure of finishing in third place. samwang.substack.com/p/a-great-el...

grants.nih.gov/news-events/... NIH guidance on what is and isn't a foreign component. (June 1, 2026)

There are a bunch of people at the NIH that are working hard under challenging circumstances to keep US research moving on the extramural side. I'm thankful for all of the work they do.

Mythbusters is my kids’ favorite show (10 yo and 6 yo). The show was canceled before they were born, but it resonates. Empiricism. Even above rigor, empiricism. Thank you to everyone who helped create this show. labrigger.com/blog/2014/01...

When the James Webb space telescope was moved from California to French Guiana, it was in an unmarked container (to avoid PIRATES!) which functioned as a mobile clean room: "no more than 100 airborne particles greater than or equal to 0.5 microns in size" www.freightwaves.com/news/james-w... (1/2)

How can light precisely control neural activity? 🧠💡 This review from RIKEN & Science Tokyo, published in #Neurophotonics, outlines advances in two‑photon optogenetic stimulation, enabling targeted activation of neurons with high spatial precision. ⚛️ 🔗: https://bit.ly/3PEnbCo

Me: I see you need a new imaging system. Would you like an LLSM, ExLLSM, LLSM-PAINT, SIM, ISM, LLS-SIM, SMLM/SPT, AO-ISM, AO-LLSM, or an AO-LLS-SIM? You: Yes. Me: Good. Here are the pieces. Beautiful work by Upadhyayula, Legant, Betzig, and many other excellent people. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

This is Humphrey. I guess I’ll do work on the laptop some other time. #caturday