The Wireless Opto Stimulator is a tiny device that is transiently attached to a connector on the mouse or rat’s skull and lets you stimulate the brain via our new generation 30mW blue optostimulating electrodes.
– The Wireless Opto Stimulator works with a new generation of optical stimulating electrodes that has a powerful blue LED on the tip of the implanted wire. This approach permits one to use the same setup and equipment for both electrical and optical stimulation.
– Any lab stimulator that generates 3-5 V pulses or an Invilog In Vivo voltammetry Setup can control one or several devices. Invilog also provides a Wireless Stimulation Setup that includes own stimulator.
– This tiny device, which weighs only 1.7 g, is transiently attached to the fixed-on-the-skull connector of the stimulating electrode. We use either an Invilog or a customer-defined connector.
– Each device is delivered with an infrared transmitter.
– Two optostimulating electrodes, implanted in different brain areas can be stimulated with just one device (switching from stimulation by one electrode to a second one requires device re-connection).
– The default power produced by the LT250i optostimulating electrode working in combination with the device is fixed at a level of 5 mW (or optionally can be adjusted with an onboard potentiometer). This power is five times more than what is needed to induce dopamine release in the dorsal striatum, following substantia nigra optical stimulation. At this power level and with optical stimulation producing the maximal dopamine release (4 ms pulse length stimulation repeated every 25 ms, Bass et al., 2010 J.Neurochem., 114(5), 1344-53), the device can deliver stable light stimulation for an experiment lasting as long as 8 hours. If one requires a longer period of observation, then simply change the battery, which can be done in a few seconds; the battery itself is inexpensive, costing only 0.5 euro.
Wireless opto-stimulator v. 2.1 includes the device with a fixed output power of 5 mW and and infrared transmitter.
The Wireless opto-stimulator v.2.2 includes the device with an adjustable output power 1 -10 mW (it does require your own tools to calibrate the pulsing light power).