OpBox

In vivo electrophysiology experiments are widely used in neuroscience to investigate brain activity, yet setups can be expensive with multiple subjects. Eyal Kimchi and colleagues developed OpBox, an open-source in-vivo electrophysiology hardware and software package. The OpBox setup aims to lower the cost of electrophysiology recordings in behaving animals; costing only $500 per subject compared to commercial recording devices which cost thousands of dollars per subject. OpBox scripts, coded in MATLAB, collect and display EEG and EMG data in real-time from multiple subjects. Recording from subjects simultaneously increases experimental efficiency and enables reproducibility across laboratories. The OpBox hardware includes a multichannel amplifier which produces analog outputs and streams information to data acquisition devices. This open-source design also allows for modular combinations of video cameras and behavior devices depending on the experimental design. The code and the required hardware can be found on the Kimchi Lab GitHub site: https://github.com/KimchiLab/OpBoxPhys.

This research tool was created by your colleagues. Please acknowledge the Principal Investigator, cite the article in which the tool was described, and include an RRID in the Materials and Methods of your future publications. RRID: SCR_023269

Special thanks to Weston Link, an undergraduate neuroscience major, for providing this project summary! This summary is part of a collection from students in a Computational Methods for Neuroscience Course at American University.