Tools for brain hackers

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/11/features/seeing-the-light?page=all

Ed Boyden, an engineer turned neuroscientist, makes tools for brain hackers. From his lab at MIT, he is building technology that will vastly expand the range of experiments that other scientists can pull off. His latest invention is a classic example: a robot that patch-clamps as well as a human scientist, with none of the fatigue or variability. It works all day. It does not need lunch breaks. It has transformed a technique that had only been mastered by an elite few into something that anyone can do, and hundreds of labs are queuing up to buy or make an auto-patcher of their own. Boyden published a description of the robot in May this year. He says, "After our paper came out, I got an email saying, 'I just spent a year learning how to do that. Thanks. There goes that'."