Deep in Transylvanian farm country,
a group of the world's most technologically sophisticated brain researchers comes together each year, to build a cutting edge research laboratory from scratch in a roadside lodge with dodgy Internet access. The facility includes 2-photon excitation microscopy, high channel count electrophysiology, reinforcement learning assays, virtual reality and quantitative behavioral measurement with computer vision technology. Once the laboratory is complete, 10 lucky students (chosen from among hundreds of applicants) begin the TENSS course - Transylvanian Experimental Neuroscience Summer School.
The course begins with lectures in fundamentals of optics, data acquisition and electronic prototyping. Lectures from an impressive list of invited speakers and staff are mixed with hands-on hacking exercises, where students gain intuition for the concepts they're learning. To culminate almost 3 weeks of intense technological enlightenment, students have 3 days to design an experiment that pushes the edge of human knowledge, and collect data using their new skills.
The course has corporate sponsors for advanced optics technologies, but the range of possible behaviors and stimulation conditions necessitates systems that are open and hackable. Sanworks is especially happy to be a TENSS partner, by providing Bpod and Pulse Pal systems for the course. Our open technology is enabling in this kind of setting - where experiments combining optogenetics and behavior with electrophysiology (using Open Ephys) would otherwise be seriously constrained by the course budget.
