Sarael Alcauter is an assistant professor in the department of behavioral and cognitive neurobiology at the Institute of Neurobiology, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Silke Nuber and coworkers generated and deeply characterized numerous transgenic rodent models to study PD and related disorders, including the first inducible α-synuclein (αS) transgenic mice, humanized BAC-wildtype human αS tg rat models.

Sierra Simpson is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the George Lab at the University of California, San Diego where she studies the gut brain axis and addiction.

Sze Chai Kwok is associate professor in the School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics Ministry of Education at East China Normal University, and a member of the NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai.

Rahul Patel is a graduate research assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In this presentation, Stephanie Cragg and Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy will cover the basics of using optogenetics in acute brain slices, also called ex vivo. Specifically, they will: - Identify key concepts in the design and interpretation of ex vivo optogenetic experiments. - Describe critical parts and equipment for ex vivo optogenetics experiments. After watching this presentation, you should be able to understand the basic setup and key concepts for ex vivo optogenetics experiments.