Fig. 1.

Increased yield of regional pipette localization (RPL) during whole cell patching in vivo with robotic navigation. In vivo whole cell recording is a serial process consisting of RPL, neuron hunting, gigaseal formation, and break-in. Whole cell recording yield (total yield) is a linear product of previous success rates. During traditional linear localization, cortical (top) and thalamic (middle) pipettes are clogged in 1/5 insertions and 3/4 insertions, respectively, preventing further steps. The gray box indicates procedures presented in this study. The percentage of pipettes that successfully performed RPL increased from 25% to 82% and total whole cell yield increased from 1% to 10% when robotic navigation was performed. (Top row data reproduced from Kodandaramaiah et al. 2012 with permission.)