Recording the activity of neural populations
at high sampling rates is a fundamental requirement for
understanding computation in neural circuits. Two photon
microscopy provides one promising approach towards this.
However, neural circuits are three dimensional, and functional
imaging in two dimensions fails to capture the 3D nature
of neural dynamics. Electrically tunable lenses (ETLs) provide
a simple and cheap method to extend laser scanning
microscopy into the relatively unexploited third dimension.
We have therefore incorporated them into our Adaptive Spiral
Scanning (SSA) algorithm, which calculates kinematically
efficient scanning strategies using radially modulated spiral
paths. We characterised the response of the ETL, incorporated
its dynamics using MATLAB models of the SSA algorithm
and tested the models on populations of Izhikevich neurons
of varying size and density. From this, we show that our
algorithms can theoretically at least achieve sampling rates of
36.2Hz compared to 21.6Hz previously reported for 3D scanning
techniques.