Teensy-based Interface

Michael Romano and colleagues from the Han Lab at Boston University recently published their project using a Teensy microcontroller to control an sCMOS camera in behavioral experiments to obtain high temporal precision:

Teensy microcontrollers are becoming increasingly more popular and widespread in the neuroscience community. One benefit of using a Teensy is its ease of programming for those with little programming experience, as it uses Arduino/C++ language. An additional benefit of using a Teensy microcontroller is that it can take in and send out time-precise signals. Romano et al. developed a flexible Teensy 3.2-based interface for data acquisition and delivery of analog and digital signals during a rodent locomotion tracking experiment and in a trace eye blink conditioning experiment. The group shows how the interface can be paired with optical calcium imaging as well. The setup integrates a sCMOS camera with behavioral experiments, and the interface is rather user-friendly.

The Teensy interface ensures that the data is temporally precise, and the Teensy interface can also deliver digital signals with microsecond precision to capture images from a paired sCMOS camera. Calcium imaging can be performed during the eye blink conditioning experiment. This was done through pulses send to the camera to capture calcium activity in the hippocampus at 20 Hz from the Teensy. Additionally, the group shows that the Teensy interface can also generate analog sound waveforms to drive speakers for the eye blink experiment. The study shows how an inexpensive piece of lab equipment, like a simple Teensy microcontroller, can be utilized to drive multiple aspects of a neuroscience experiment, and provides inspiration for future experiments to utilize microcontrollers to control behavioral experiments.

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