ThetaStation
ThetaStation is an opto-mechanical tool designed to perform spatial selective light delivery with OptogeniX Lambda fibers.
ThetaStation allows to confine and manually scan the light emitted by a Lambda fiber at sub-sites of its active length. By doing so, sub-portions of the tissue region where the Lambda fiber is implanted can be independently probed: this capability gives access to an additional degree of freedom during optogenetics experiments, which has particular relevance when readout techniques extending along one axis are used simultaneously with the spatial selective light delivery (e.g. linear microelectrode array).
Another way to take advantage of this capability is to compensate for fiber implantation uncertainty (Nature Communications).
Lambda-plus fibers
Lambda-plus fibers are Lambda fibers selected with strict tolerance on both taper length and taper profile for a constant sub-site length among fibers of different batches, and are strongly recommended to ThetaStation and GalvoStation users. Visit the shop page for an updated specs list of Lambda–plus fibers currently available.
General recommendations:
- Laser sources are recommended for the use of ThetaStation.
- Use a Single Mode (SM) input patch cord for best transmission efficiency.
- Position and size of light emitting sub-regions of Lambda fibers, as well as transmission efficiency, need to be calibrated as a function of the micrometer screw position.