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Welcome to the Miniscope-LFOV wiki!

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Miniscope-LFOV: Large field-of-view miniature microscope for rats and larger animals.

The goal of this Wiki, and the Miniscope project in general, is to help advance and disseminate miniature microscopy technology to the neuroscience community. While the Miniscope platform described here is not an off-the-shelf commercial solution, we have focused on making it as easy as possible for any neuroscience lab to build, use, and modify, requiring no soldering and only simple hands-on assembly. The Miniscope project, Miniscope repositories, and Miniscope.org are ongoing projects and will be routinely updated over the coming months and years.

The Miniscope_LFOV is designed to extend the capabilities of the UCLA Miniscope for head-fixed imaging in mice, and head-free imaging to larger rodents and non-human primates. This system is capable of multiple imaging configurations, including deep brain imaging using implanted optical probes and cortical imaging through cranial windows. Some feature highlights are listed below.

• 3.6 X 2.7 mm field of view
• ~3 µm resolution
• 3.5 mm working distance
• +/-150um electronic focal adjustment
• Modular optics
• Achromatic optics
• 13.9 grams
• 30 mm tall
• Absolute head orientation sensor
• Requires ~1/2th the excitation power of previous systems
• No more soldering!
• Still uses only a single coaxial cable (down to 0.3mm in diameter) for power, communication, and data.
• New DAQ software

The Miniscope LFOV is the head-mounted miniature microscope part of the UCLA Miniscope imaging platform. The MiniLFOV interfaces to a Miniscope DAQ Box through a thin, flexible 50Ohm coaxial cable. The Miniscope DAQ Box needs to be programmed with the MiniLFOV DAQ firmware which can be found in the Built_Firmware folder of the Miniscope DAQ Firmware repository. The DAQ Box then connects to a Windows computer over USB3 and the computer needs to be running the Miniscope DAQ Software.

How to build and use the Miniscope LFOV

The MiniLFOV platform consists of 1) the head-mounted Miniscope LFOV, 2) Miniscope DAQ Software, and a 3) Miniscope DAQ box running 4) Miniscope DAQ Firmware. Below is how we suggest you get familiar with these projects and links to everything you need to get up and running:

1) Getting familiar with this wiki and the Miniscope LFOV.

• Visit the Part List page to understand what the MiniLFOV is built from.
• Visit the Miniscope Part Procurement and Buyer's Guide pages for some suggested ways of procuring the necessary parts to build a MiniLFOV. Much of the Miniscope is constructed from off the shelf parts and optics but there are some custom components, namely the Miniscope body parts and the Miniscope Rigid-Flex PCB. This repository provides everything you need to fabricate these custom components yourself but we are also working with open-source distribution companies to try and make these custom components available from multiple sources at affordable pricing.
• Visit the Assemblyguide to understand how to assemble a MiniLFOV.
• Visit the Initial Testing of Assembled Miniscope to read how to validate your system before imaging in animals.
• For additional questions and help, visit the Getting Help page.

2) Getting familiar with the Miniscope DAQ Software

• Visit the Miniscope-DAQ-QT-Software Repository,
• Visit the Miniscope-DAQ-QT-Software Wiki
• Visit the Miniscope DAQ Software Releases Page

3) and 4) Getting familiar with the Miniscope DAQ Box

The MiniLFOV works with all previously released Miniscope DAQ Boxes and PCBs. All you need to do is make sure the DAQ Box's firmware is up-to-date with the newest Miniscope DAQ Firmware.

• Information on the Miniscope DAQ Box can be found at the DAQ Hardware page on this Wiki as well as on Miniscope.org here.

Additional Information