Multi-functional accessory toolkit for Miniscope prototyping and image enhancement

During the last decade, Miniaturized microscopy, or Miniscope, has gained popularity in neuroscience, particularly for behavioral studies in awake rodents. However, image quality control and standardization remain challenging for both users and developers. To address these challenges, we present MiniMounter, a cost-effective and multi-functional accessory toolkit that includes a hardware platform with customized grippers and four-degree-of-freedom adjustment for Miniscope, as well as software for displacement control and image quality evaluation. Our toolkit enables auto-focusing and accurate measurement of spatial resolution and field of view (FOV). We have demonstrated the effectiveness of such a toolkit through comprehensive phantom and animal experiments.