on The ever-enterprising Zach Sheldon set us up a GitHub today. As we are putting together papers and analyses this year, expect to see a fair amount of code going up, including the analysis for Zach and lab alum Chris Glaze’s upcoming paper on the effects of social dependent norepinephrine from Locus Coeruleus on the LMAN-RA synapse in zebra finches (currently in review).
find us at https://github.com/marcschmidtlab
~ap
on Hi there!
This week we have some images we’ve gotten after a fair amount of pain staking work (by both lab all-star and intramural Frisbee champion, Jessie Burke, and Lab Alum Collyn Messier). We’re working to close the song circuit in the female cowbird, and part of the challenge is getting the connections in the thalamic nucleus DLM (dorso-lateral division of the medial thalamus, for those keeping score at home). Here we have labeling in DLM from an injection in Area X. The video is a 3d reconstruction from a z-stack of confocal images (Thanks to Andrea Stout, PhD for helping Jessie get these images!). The blue is Hoechst stain of neurons in DLM. The red is CTB.
Stay tuned for more exciting news (and eventual publications).
~ap
on I said I’d update this once a week, so here I am one week later. This week I have a follow up from last week’s teaser: a git repo for automating song playback while making it conditional on baseline motion. This is fairly important for some of the work we’re starting next week, but it should be broadly applicable for behavioral experiments if you want to adapt it a bit.
Shoot me (Ammon) a message if you’re interested.
https://github.com/aperkes/SmartBox
~ap
on Hi loyal readers, I realized I have been far too focussed on moving myself towards graduation, and have allowed the website to fall by the wayside once again. Starting today, I’ll aim for weekly updates (hopefully this manages to make it to next week).
This week, we have a great option for a screen saver: motion detection of cowbirds. This is part of a larger script I’m writing to automate our playback experiments that are starting in a couple weeks. Feel free to play music in the background to improve the experience.
Announcement wise, we’re excited to welcome Marc Badger to the aviary project. He’s been here for a couple months already, and has already made a huge impact. Stay tuned for exciting (perhaps weekly) developments.
~ap