Welcome to my personal webpage.

My name is Zoltan Raics, a software engineer interested in software, hardware and neuroscience. Here you can find more about my work.

SOFTWARE

Vision Experiment Manager

Vision Experiment Manager is a Python based software framework for automating experiments related to studying vision at retinal and cortical levels. Several applications are depending on the framework: visual stimulation, behavioral control and online analysis tools. Besides experiment automation, it focuses on preprocessing or quick analysis of data to give an immediate feedback to the experimenter and help further analysis at higher levels.

 

The framework’s applications can be interfaced to several measurement methods: Calcium imaging, single patch electrode or multielectrode array recordings. Screen/projector is the most common stimulation device but Lasers and LED light sources are also supported.

 

Vision Experiment Manager is being developed in Botond Roska’s research group in Friedrich Miescher Institute. The foundations of the framework were designed with Daniel Hillier.

 

Supported Experimental Setups

  • Femtonics Rollercoaster (RC) two photon microscope
  • Femtonics Acoustooptic (AO) two photon microscope
  • Retinal two photon microscope
  • Multichannel Systems multielectrode array
  • Hidens multielectrode array
  • Behavioral setup
  • Cortical ultrasound setup (under development)

 

Contribution to Publications

The following research projects used Vision Experiment Manager:

Antonia Drinnenberg et al.
How diverse retinal functions arise from feedback at the first visual synapse
Neuron, 2018

Keisuke Yonehara et al.
Congenital Nystagmus Gene FRMD7 Is Necessary for Establishing a Neuronal Circuit Asymmetry for Direction Selectivity.
Neuron, 2016

Karl Farrow et al.
Ambient Illumination Toggles a Neuronal Circuit Switch in the Retina and Visual Perception at Cone Threshold
Neuron, 2013

Behavioral Experiment Software

Controls mouse behavioral experiment and visualizes experiment results. The behavioral protocol is run by a microcontroller based real-time environment.
behavioral_sw

Calcium Imaging Online Analysis

The main user interface of Vision Experiment Manager has the capability of analyzing Calcium Imaging data. The datafiles can be opened for automatic or manual cell detection. Data can be exported to Matlab mat file.

online

Vision Experiment Manager for Femtonics RC Microscope

The early version of the main user interface of Vision Experiment Manager has limited analysis functions. It focuses on controlling Femtonics RC Microscope and visual stimulation software. It handles scan regions, displays online analysis status. It has access to motorized stage and goniometer that helps aligning the sample. It is used for in-vivo cortical Calcium Imaging of mice.
visexpman

Visual Stimulation

Generates various visual patterns for retinal or visual cortex stimulation: Moving grating, moving bars, natural stimuli, checkerboard, multiple dots.

Additional features:

  • Integrated with Vision Experiment Control, stimulus start is triggered via zmq
  • Interface to NI Data acquisition cards enabling control of various external stimulation devices like lasers, led sources.
  • Stimulation files are in Python syntax
  • Experiment control, trigger generation
  • Filterwheel control
  • Runs on Windows xp/7/10, Mac and Ubuntu Linux
presentinator

Daniel Hillier, Michele Fiscella, Antonia Drinnenberg, Stuart Trenholm, Santiago B Rompani, Zoltan Raics, Gergely Katona, Josephine Juettner, Andreas Hierlemann, Balazs Rozsa & Botond Roska Causal evidence for retina-dependent and -independent visual motion computations in mouse cortex Nature Neuroscience, 2017

A Wertz, S Trenholm, K Yonehara, D Hillier, Z Raics, M Leinweber, G Szalay, A Ghanem, G Keller, B Rozsa, K Conzelmann, B Roska,
Single-cell-initiated monosynaptic tracing reveals layer-specific cortical network modules
Science, 2015

T Szikra, S Trenholm, A Drinnenberg, J Juttner, Z Raics, K Farrow, M Biel, G Awatramani, D Clark, J Sahel, R da Silveira, B Roska,
Rods in daylight act as relay cells for cone-driven horizontal cell-mediated surround inhibition
Nature Neuroscience, 2014

Two Photon Imaging

Controls two photon microscopy setup

  • Two photon imaging
  • Calcium imaging
  • Infrared camera control
  • Stage control
  • Advanced visualization of image channels including user lookup tables and many filters.
  • Two photon and infrared image can be overlaid
  • Z stack
  • Can be triggered via network from Vision Experiment Manager
  • Written in LabVIEW
2pimaging

Contribution to Publications

AkihiroMatsumoto et al.
Direction selectivity in retinal bipolar cell axon terminals
Neuron, 2021

Emilie Macé et al.
Targeting Channelrhodopsin-2 to ON-bipolar Cells With Vitreally Administered AAV Restores ON and OFF Visual Responses in Blind Mice
Molecular Therapy, 2015

Keisuke Yonehara et al.
The First Stage of Cardinal Direction Selectivity Is Localized to the Dendrites of Retinal Ganglion Cells
Neuron, 2013

Home Made Software

 

Ultrasound Radar (2017)

This application is used for testing the HC-SR04 ultrasound range finder. It controls servos which adjust the rotation and tilt of the HC-SR04. A map is formed from the measured distances and it is displayed. Source code is on Github

ultrasound_radar

Adel Monitor (2016)

A Flask and Sqlite based web application for tracking baby’s feeding times, weight gain and sleep time. Statistics are displayed on plots helping to identify feeding and sleep patterns. Source code is available at Github.

HARDWARE

BNC Shield for Arduino (2017)

This shield extends the usability of Arduino Uno for neurobiological experiments. Digital IO can be routed to all five BNC connectors and three of them has an alternative function: one analog output for waveform generation and two analog inputs. Optional light intensity and temperature sensors.
bncshield
Applications:

Extension Boards for LIGO Advanced Timing System (2008)

These two pieces of hardware were a tiny contribution to the first detection of gravitational waves by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

The Timing Comparator extension board has seven 50 Ohm terminated input channels receive 1 PPS signals at TTL level and converts them to LVDS signal. Four channel generates 1 PPS signals from LVDS at TTL level with 50 Ohm driving capability.

Six layers were used for the PCB design of the Duotone expansion board. It two analog outputs for generating duotone signals. Eight clock outputs are available for driving 50 Ohm lines. Additionally two RS-485 ports, LCD interface and general purpose digital IOs can be utilized.

Imre Bartos, Rolf Bork, Maxim Factourovich, Jay Heefner, Szabolcs Márka, Zsuzsa Márka, Zoltán Raics, Paul Schwinberg and Daniel Sigg
The Advanced LIGO Timing System
Classical and Quantum Gravity, 2010

B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, … Z. Raics, (The LIGO Scientific Collaboration)
An upper limit on the stochastic gravitational-wave background of cosmological origin
Nature, 2009

B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, … Z. Raics, (The LIGO Scientific Collaboration)
Search for Gravitational Waves from Low Mass Binary Coalescences in the First Year of LIGO’s S5 Data
Phys. Rev, 2009

B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, … Z. Raics, (The LIGO Scientific Collaboration)
LIGO: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory
Reports on Progress in Physics, 2009

Product Tracker (2008)

Zigbee based transponder for tracking products in Factory Installation Services in National Instruments plant. A loud buzzer indicates the location of the tracked item. Long, four week battery life.
xbeenode

Bluetooth Meteorological Station (2006)

My diploma design was to design the PCB and implement firmware of a meteorological data logger. Logs data from externally connected WXT510 meteorological station. Data stored to 2 Mbyte flash, read out through Bluetooth 2.0 interface.

meteorologicaldatalogger

Home Made Hardware

 

Ultrasound Radar (2017)

FPGA based controller board for RC cars.

Features:

  • Spartan3 FPGA with platform flash
  • Application runs on Microblaze softcore processor
  • Remote control via Zigbee radio
  • RS-232 interface
  • Maximum system clock 48 MHz
  • 50 pin expansion connector
carcontrol

Bluetooth Flash Memory (2006)

Features:

  • ARM7 based microcontroller running at 58.9824 MHz
  • MMC card slot – FAT16 and FAT32 support
  • Class 1 Bluetooth – 100 m range
  • Real Time clock – data retention half year
  • RS-232 interface for debugging

Possible applications:

  • Embedded, wireless storage device
  • Intelligent Bluetooth node

PUBLICATIONS

Dasha Nelidova, Rei K Morikawa, Cameron S Cowan, Zoltan Raics, David Goldblum, Hendrik P N Scholl, Tamas Szikra, Arnold Szabo, Daniel Hillier, Botond Roska, Restoring light sensitivity using tunable near-infrared sensors Science Vol. 368, Issue 6495, pp. 1108-1113, 2020

Daniel Hillier, Michele Fiscella, Antonia Drinnenberg, Stuart Trenholm, Santiago B Rompani, Zoltan Raics, Gergely Katona, Josephine Juettner, Andreas Hierlemann, Balazs Rozsa & Botond Roska Causal evidence for retina-dependent and -independent visual motion computations in mouse cortex Nature Neuroscience, 2017

A Wertz, S Trenholm, K Yonehara, D Hillier, Z Raics, M Leinweber, G Szalay, A Ghanem, G Keller, B Rozsa, K Conzelmann, B Roska,
Single-cell-initiated monosynaptic tracing reveals layer-specific cortical network modules
Science, 2015

T Szikra, S Trenholm, A Drinnenberg, J Juttner, Z Raics, K Farrow, M Biel, G Awatramani, D Clark, J Sahel, R da Silveira, B Roska,
Rods in daylight act as relay cells for cone-driven horizontal cell-mediated surround inhibition
Nature Neuroscience, 2014

Imre Bartos, Rolf Bork, Maxim Factourovich, Jay Heefner, Szabolcs Márka, Zsuzsa Márka, Zoltán Raics, Paul Schwinberg and Daniel Sigg
The Advanced LIGO Timing System
Classical and Quantum Gravity, 2010

B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, … Z. Raics, (The LIGO Scientific Collaboration)
An upper limit on the stochastic gravitational-wave background of cosmological origin
Nature, 2009

B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, … Z. Raics, (The LIGO Scientific Collaboration)
Search for Gravitational Waves from Low Mass Binary Coalescences in the First Year of LIGO’s S5 Data
Phys. Rev, 2009

B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, … Z. Raics, (The LIGO Scientific Collaboration)
LIGO: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory
Reports on Progress in Physics, 2009

Diploma Design, 2006

CONTACT