Years in the making, we officially launch our “Completo,” which combines our Manipulator, RoachScope, SpikerBox, and beautiful poplar wooden steel table into a single rig for those neuroscientists on the go. We have successfully used it to record muscle potentials from fruit flies, carefully position electrodes on earthworm nerves, and measure adaptation rates in cockroach sensory neurons. What […]

One of the first ways neuroscientists were able to measure the “speed” of neural computation was via reaction time. A typical human reaction time, in which you push a button after seeing a light, is ~150-200 ms. With our new EMG SpikerBox, students can now measure the electrical activity of their muscles during movements. Thus, […]

Have you ever wanted to take a picture of something you saw under a microscope to share with friends, family and colleagues? If so, then you’ll know it’s almost impossible to do! Well… not anymore! Backyard Brains is offering a beta-version of our smartphone microscope code-named “The RoachScope”. Our new scope is designed with a […]

While we have enjoyed learning about insect neuroscience during the past few years of our adventure, many teachers have asked us: “Do we have to use bugs?” or “Will this work on humans?” Recording from individual neurons or bundles of nerves requires invasive electrodes, so we are limited to insect preparations for neural activity. But…your […]

If you’ve followed us over the past couple years, you’ll know we have been slowly working on a MicroManipulator to allow you to do more precise neural recordings instead of just “blindly” inserting electrodes in a cockroach leg, cricket, or earthworm. We’ve had prototypes of manipulators for about as long as we’ve been in existence, […]

We hereby announce our 2-Channel SpikerBox. What can you do with it? Why, you can measure the speed of spikes as they travel down a nerve, in a truly “backyard” preparation using Earthworms. See our full experiment write up on how to do it! How fast is a spike? Faster than a car, faster than […]

Coming to the Society for Neuroscience meeting is always great fun for us, and it was especially true this year as we unveiled the third generation of our optogenetic prototype and actually did some experiments at our poster! Earlier this year we sponsored a student design effort to build a portable optogenetic rig using cholinergic […]

Thanks to all who donated! The mission of FundScience is to get the public directly involved in funding scientific enterprise, so, of course, where did the $512.20 we raised actually go? Did it dump right into indirect costs? No way! Our organization develops low-cost neurotechnology, and the support of FundScience helped enable the building of […]

We’ve been busy in the trenches of our R&D department designing a working prototype of the “RoboRoach,” a remote control system to enable left and right turning in running cockroaches. This began as a University of Michigan Senior Engineering Project we sponsored in Winter 2010, and over the past year we’ve incrementally been working to […]

We have been slowly distributing ourSpikerBoxes to high schools (nine so far), in efforts to bring the sound of spikes to physics and biology labs around the country. Letizia Judd, biology teacher atSt. Mary’s Preparatory School in Orchard Lake, MI, recently purchased a fullDIY classroom kit, where even (off-menu) the stimulation and iPhone cables were […]

Our engineering department is working hard on the next generation of the SpikerBox. The chief user request we’ve received is to make the SpikerBox louder; in fact, loud enough for large classrooms. Below is the audio component of our circuit, using the infamous LM386. Making this audio component both loud AND stable has been a […]

Perhaps, dear customer, you wonder how we keep costs low? Here we remove the curtain off our factory floor to show our production staff: We offer door to door bus service: We have found that small hands are optimal for cutting the circuit boards: Taking a hint from our friends at Hewlett-Pakard (recent firing decision aside), we use […]