Department of Neurology · UCLA
Open-source tools for recording and manipulating neural activity in freely behaving animals.
The Aharoni Lab works at the intersection of engineering, neuroscience, and physics. We build open platforms for imaging and manipulating neural activity in freely behaving animals: the optics, electronics, and firmware of head-mounted microscopes, the acquisition software and analysis pipelines that go with them, and the documentation and training that let other labs actually use them.
We lead the UCLA Miniscope Project, an open-source miniaturized microscopy ecosystem that has become one of the most widely adopted neurotechnology platforms in the field. Our work is motivated by two goals: democratizing access to transformative tools in neuroscience, and closing the gap between specialized tool design and the questions neuroscientists actually need to answer.
Wire-free and fully wireless Miniscopes, large field-of-view and multi-region imaging, dual-color imaging, miniature two-photon systems, and platforms that combine imaging with patterned optogenetic stimulation. Read more →
Cross-platform acquisition, streaming and real-time analysis, and browser-based tools for calcium imaging, including Minian and CaLab.
Through an NIH BRAIN Initiative U24 resource we maintain miniscope.org (guides, forums, hardware and software projects) and run hands-on workshops and drop-in office hours.
We use these tools, in the lab and with collaborators, to study how hippocampal and cortical circuits encode memory, space, and social behavior across long timescales.