Author Archives: joseph.raimondo@uct.ac.za

isiCNI2019 is underway!

The third iteration of the IBRO-SIMONS Computational Neuroscience Imbizo – isiCNI2019 is currently underway in Muizenberg! Read more about it here: http://imbizo.africa/ or follow us Twitter

isiCNI2019

The goal of this 3 week summer school is to build computational neuroscience capacity in Africa by bringing together African and International students under the tutelage of world-leading experts in the field.

IBRO-UCT African Advanced School on Techniques in Neuroscience – Dec 2017

Raimondo lab actionIn December 2017 the lab helped organise and run the IBRO-UCT African Advanced School on Techniques in Neuroscience. The school was also supported by the Newton Fund. Many of the techniques established in the lab: whole-cell patch-clamp, interface local field potential recordings and Ca2+ imaging featured as part of the school.  The full school report can be found here.

IBRO_Techniques

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Jaideep Bains explaining the final subtleties of hippocampal circuitry.

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Recording a ‘seizure’ in vitro!

Thijs Verhoog in action - the patch-clamp guru.

Thijs Verhoog in action – the patch-clamp guru.

LFP recordings in hippocampal slices.

LFP recordings in hippocampal slices.

Openspritzer: An open hardware solution for delivering picoliter volumes to biological samples

We are proud to announce that our paper describing the construction and performance of an open hardware ‘Picospritzer’ – Openspritzer is out. This was a collaborative effort with the Baden Lab who have a strong interest in open hardware and the development of neuroscience research capacity in Africa. Please find the paper and detailed build instructions here.

OpenSpritzer Summary

Designed for ease of use, robustness and low-cost, the “Openspritzer” is an open hardware “Picospritzer” as routinely used in biological labs around the world. The performance of Openspritzer and commercial alternatives is effectively indistinguishable.

The system is based on a solenoid valve connected to a pressure gauge. Control can be attained directly via an external TTL pulse or internally through an Arduino set by a rotary encoder. The basic setup can be put together for 3-400€, or substantially less if you are prepare to shop around.