Table 2.

Troubleshooting.

Case	Intervention	Comment
Failure to detect signal (Table 1, steps 1–2)	a. Adjust camera focus deeper	a. Focusing the camera at inappropriate level (e.g. at the dural surface) reduces signal amplitude (see “Methods”, “Imaging procedures” sections)
	b. Adjust camera position	b. Cranial window must be positioned at the center of the camera, reflecting the brightest light
	c. Decrease/increase light intensity	c. Hemodynamic signals evoke small reflectance intensity changes. Too little light may prevent signal detection
	d. Adjust anesthesia level	d. High levels of anesthesia impair visual signals. It is important to pair sedation with minimal maintenance anesthesia during imaging
Software or Image acquisition freezes/crashes	a. Clear all or Restart MATLAB	a. Clear workspace or restart MATLAB to flush memory
	b. Unplug/plug data acquisition (DAQ) device	b. DAQ device may power off if software freezes, preventing additional recordings
	c. Reboot primary computer	c. Extreme case, only when the experimenter is unable to acquire images