Voltage-Sensitive Dye Imaging

Voltage sensitive dye imaging (VSD) can be used to record neural activity in hundreds of locations in preparations ranging from mammalian cortex to invertebrate ganglia. Because fast VSDs respond to membrane potential changes with microsecond temporal resolution, these are better suited than calcium indicators for recording rapid neural signals. Here we describe methods for using a 464- element photodiode array and fast VSDs to record signals ranging from large scale network activity in brain slices and in vivo mammalian preparations, to action potentials in over 100 individual neurons in invertebrate ganglia.