A Novel Design Method of Light-weight Minisocpe without Object Lenses for Calcium Imaging

Single-photon calcium imaging miniscope is a common technique in neuroscience. However, the size and weight of current miniscopes, because of the necessary 0.5mm GRIN lens, is big and heavy, which impacts the behavior of the animals to some extent. This kind of behavior limitation had a strong impaction on the neuronal activities which were recorded by miniscopes. Here, we designed a new optic light path, based on the simplified model of GRIN lens, reduced the size and weight to 2/3 the size and weight compared to the original minisocpes by replacing the 0.5 pitch GRIN lens to 0.25 pitch GRIN lens. At the same time, the resolution and image field diameter recorded by our minisocpe are the same with original minisocpes.