---
# System prepended metadata

title: '09/07/22: E-Phys Recording Test & Troubleshooting'

---

# 09/07/22: E-Phys Recording Test & Troubleshooting
* Present: Ramon, Alexis, Neha, Danny, Hannah, Josh, James C

## Set-up
* Grid: 20 degree
* Grid hole: P5 R7 (5 holes from the posterior and 7 holes from the right as determined from Pollux MRI scan)
* Electrode: the same electrode that was used in the previous e-phys experiment was used along with a plastic (microfil) guide tube
    * The electrode was retracted into the guide tube 3mm in an effort to prevent it from getting stuck in granualation tissue.
* The electrode was referenced to a needle inserted into a different gridhole that was in contact with saline solution/granulation tissue inside the recording chamber.
* Starting juice: 500mL (50/50:juice/water)
* Ending juice: 0mL
* Gains: X-190; Y-250

## Procedure
* First, we ran the 5-dot **Rig A** paradigm to calibrate the eye tracker.
* Second, we tried to ground the monkey to get rid of external noise. This was done by clipping an earlobe electrode to the monkey's ear (inactive tissue) and connecting it to the common ground.
* The monkey grounding worked, and we got rid almost completely of the 60Hz line noise. The reward artifact was dramatically decreased. We can play a little more with that, but it should be relatively easy to reject those artifacts on Plexon Offline Sorter or directly on Omniplex.
* The electrode bent when only advanced 0.5mm from the zero point so we could not advance into MT and record the target neurons today. The electrode was probably just in the parietal cortex, if at all in the brain.
    * We need to figure out a way to better stabilize the advancer.
    * We need to have at hand some materials that can be used to troubleshoot grounding issues, should they appear during the actual recordings (aluminum foil, cables with alligator clamps, pins)
* We were able to get a small **waveform** when [name=Josh] started the hand mapping paradigm where the stimuli included flashing small black squares. [name=Josh] said he turned the magnification up  lot to see that wave. [name=Ramon] highly doubts this was a neuron, but thinks it's useful to have it recorded regardless to test analysis pipelines.
* [name=Ramon] was able to pinpoint the cause of the electrode bending. There was a misalignment between the electrode and the guide tube. It is possible that during the insertion of the guide tube through the grid hole, the guide tube clamp rotated slightly. This increased the friction between the electrode and the guide tube and in essence the electrode got stuck after advancing it a few millimeters
* We were able to get the spike generator to work. 
* We were also able to mostly get rid of the 60 Hz noise that was persistent in the previous sessions. The session was recorded.
* We spent a lot of time troubleshooting what seems to be a bug in the Plexon software: initially we did not get any audio output from the plexon box, [name=James C] helped us to verify that the audio monitor was working and that no signal was coming out fromr the analog output of the plexon box. We tried re-starting Omniplex, double checked the settings in Omniplex, but in the end what resolved the issue was unselecting and selecting again the channel a few times :unamused: 
