Techniques

We employ techniques ranging from molecular and biochemical all the way to live animal recording

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.

1. Biochemical Techniques

a. Liquid-liquid phase separation

Example of liquid-liquid phase separation from our recent paper Xing et al. 201

b. Western Blot (Phospho-blot)

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

2. In Vitro Techniques

a. Virus tracing

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

b. Immunohistochemistry

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

Staining of neuron fibers (green) innervating Neuromuscular Junctions (NMJs)

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.

c. Slice recording electrophysiology

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

3. In vivo Techniques

a. Calcium imaging

Calcium Imaging of neurons from mice with Inscopix Miniscope

b. Behavior

c. Electrode (tetrode) recording of live animals

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)

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

d. Fast Scanning Cyclic Voltammetry