A recent study published in Nature Methods describes a new mesoscopic imaging technique, named MesoLF, which can capture key interactions between 10,500 neurons distributed with a volume in the mouse brain at once, with unprecedented resolution, scale, and speed. This spin-off of light-field microscopy (LFM) performs better than LFM deep inside scattering tissue such as the mouse brain, making it a useful tool for better understanding the mechanics of cognition. The technology is capable of capturing neurons firing from brain regions many millimeters apart, buried at previously inaccessible depths, simultaneously, with unprecedented resolution. Alipasha Vaziri aims to make MesoLF widely available to scientists studying the inner workings of the brain, given the relatively low cost barrier in optical hardware. His designs are now available under an open-source license.
New Mesoscopic Imaging Technique Offers Unprecedented View of Active Brain
Animals and humans alike exhibit complex cognition and behavior, which rely on information flowing across a network of deeply interconnected brain cells. Understanding the mechanics of cognition has been a major challenge for scientists, as the scale of the brain network posed a significant obstacle due to the historically limited capabilities of available imaging tools. However, a recent study published in Nature Methods has described a new mesoscopic imaging technique, named MesoLF, that can capture key interactions between 10,500 neurons distributed with a volume in the mouse brain at once, with unprecedented resolution, scale, and speed.
MesoLF is a spin-off of light-field microscopy (LFM), a 3D imaging technique known for providing fast, high-resolution imaging. However, LFM performs poorly deep inside scattering tissue such as the mouse brain. Alipasha Vaziri and his team previously developed a machine-learning algorithm that estimates the locations of active neurons to better detect brain cell activity in dense tissue, circumventing some of these limitations. MesoLF builds on this technology by adding software and hardware to scale up the system, enabling it to penetrate tissues of various shapes and rigidities. It also keeps the computational costs inherent to processing terabytes of raw data as low as possible.
According to Vaziri, the technology could help scientists better understand the mechanics of cognition. The challenge with using mesoscopes for visualizing the fast activity of single neurons in 3D is that high-resolution point-scanning approaches are typically needed, for which the scanning time scales very unfavorably with the size of the imaged volume. However, MesoLF is capable of capturing neurons firing from brain regions many millimeters apart, buried at previously inaccessible depths, simultaneously, with unprecedented resolution.
Vaziri aims to make MesoLF widely available to scientists studying the inner workings of the brain, given the relatively low cost barrier in optical hardware. His designs are now available under an open-source license. The development of this new imaging technique offers an unprecedented view of the active brain, which can be used to better understand the mechanics of cognition and behavior in animals and humans.
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