Techniques

Our lab employs a variety of cutting edge molecular and electrophysiological that encompass both in vivo and in vitro systems. Some examples of these techniques are displayed below.

Biochemical Techniques

Liquid-liquid phase separation

Western Blot (Phospho-blot)

Example of liquid-liquid phase separation.

Western blot measuring phospo-ErbB4 in wildtype and chemogentic (T796G).

In Vitro Techniques

Virus tracing

Immunohistochemistry

Slice recording electrophysiology

Injection of AAV-DIO-TVA-G-EYFP and Rabies-ΔG-mCherry in ErbB4-CreER mPFC with retrogradely labeled neurons in the ventral hippocampus.

Staining of neuron fibers (green) innervating Neuromuscular Junctions

Staining of ErbB4 positive (red) and PV positive (green) interneurons

The cover depicts a 3D image of bassoon clusters of dopaminergic neurons (green) apposing on the dendrites or spines of medium spiny neurons (purple) in nucleus accumbens.

ErbB4 positive chandelier cell injected with biocytin and reconstructed (left) and firing traces (right).

In vivo Techniques

Calcium imaging

Behavior

Electrode (tetrode) recording of live animals

Video of animal performing attention behavior from our recent publication (Tan et al. Neuron 2018).

Calcium Imaging of neurons from mice with Inscopix Miniscope

Raster plot displaying single unit firing from neuron increased upon stimulus presentation (red arrow).

Local field potential displaying theta wave oscillations in the hippocampus during animal movement (raw blue, filtered red) with single neuron firing rate below (black tick marks).