Poll for rodent behavioral neuroscientists, esp in learning & memory fields - do you conduct your experiments during the animal’s light cycle or dark cycle? Have you ever tried both and observed a difference in behavioral outcomes?

In vivo electrophysiologists. Can we have a conversation about grounds & references? What kind of wire do you use? How do you decide which brain region is a neutral ground? Do you use a reference wire? Why/why not? I use bare steel in cerebellum, ref shorted to ground

Neurotweep hivemind:

Does anybody out there with tips on cementing fiber stubs to rat skull? We're having some issues with stubs coming away from the dental cement. Have tried anchoring with epoxy too, to no avail.

We're using 2.5mm zirconia ferrules with zirconia sleeves.

what software do you use for spike sorting?

Hey people doing in vivo opto in mammals, what are you using for light sources these days? I would like to move away from DPSS lasers for my lab's set up.

How long does it take you to produce a full first draft of a paper? @AcademicChatter #AcademicTwitter #PhDChat pic.twitter.com/jBEczhTTh3

Lab question: Bio-Serv’s dustless precision pellets seem to be backordered. Anyone use 20mg pellets (mouse operant chamber) from another company that may be available in different flavors? (That may be able to ship quickly?) Thanks! 🐭

How many 1st author papers from postdoc are needed to be considered “productive” “competitive” for a K99 nowadays? Things have changed since mine in 2011/2012 cycle.

Neurotwitter: the whole spiking data / single neuron world seems sorta wild, with lots of options for spike sorting, analysis approaches, statistical tests, etc.

Anyone have favourite resources (guides / tools / method comparisons / formatting recommendations, etc) to recommend?

Neuro twitter AAV users: when you receive AAVs for opto and DREADDs do you standardize the titer? For example, you always use 1×10¹³ vg/mL and if you receive 4.3×10¹³ vg/mL you dilute with sterile PBS.

Neurotweeps: What are your thoughts on robotic stereotaxic instruments (e.g., Neurostar)? What is the good, the bad, and the ugly? Anyone using for GRIN lens implants in rats?

What's the catchphrase from your PhD supervisor that stuck with you and you hold it in as a lemma?

Another Q for tetrode #Electrophysiologists:

When building a drive, to connect tetrodes to the EIB (or any connector), do you:
1) solder tetrode wires to the EIB
2) use the push-pin technique to attach wires to the EIB

I think 1 is more difficult but more reliable... thoughts?

What’s the next big thing in neuroscience? Transformative paradigm, technique, etc. Serious q

Ephys Twitter, I need your help! How do you test if you're recording the same neuron over days?

Folks who do single unit ephys recordings in freely behaving rats (we use @PlexonNeurosci) what programs do you use to analyze your ephys data. I’m not teaching this fall 🎉 so I have some time to finally (!) learn some coding

Upping this fantastic 🧵during recruitment season! I'll add 3 more Qs to ask lab mates:

1. Is your advisor kind?

2. If you have a professional disagreement with your advisor, how do they react?

3. Following (2), does your advisor continue to treat you kindly?#AcademicChatter https://t.co/x1zeHboZbf

Has anyone ever run med associates operant chambers using something other than med associates interface and software?

Idea: journal clubs should limit their scope to preprints and post their reviews as public comments on their respective Rxiv preprint server. The more I'm in Science, the more I understand journals as a false and lazy metric Academia uses to misjudge scientist's work.

Must read. Awesome job @TheErinCalipari and friends - love the tenor - https://t.co/8z8PH2cYaT

when doing optogenetic neural stimulation (e.g. monkey), close to light guide there is most photon flow and it decays with distance. At which distance does stimulation induce most spikes (#neurons*#deltaSpikes)?