New Minimally Invasive Tool for Investigating the Functions of Neurons in Deep-Brain Structures
Scientists led by Dr Nathalie Rochefort (Centre for Discover Brain Sciences) and Professor Tomáš Čižmár (Jena Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology) have developed a new minimally-invasive tool for imaging sub-cellular structures deep within the brain of living animals via a hair-thin optical fibre.
Using a hair-thin optical fibre, the researchers were able to look into deep brain areas of a living mouse as if through a keyhole. Recently introduced methods for holographic control of light propagation in complex media enable the use of a multimode fibre as an imaging tool. Based on this new approach, the scientists designed a compact system for fluorescence imaging at the tip of a fibre, thus offering a much smaller footprint as well as enhanced resolution compared to conventional endoscopes based on fibre bundles or graded-index lenses.
The study was published in Nature and funded by the Marie Curie Actions of the European Union’s FP7 program (608144 to S.T. and I.T.L., IEF 624461 to J.P. and MC-CIG 631770 to N.R.); the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF: Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences to J.P. and CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_003/0000476 to T.Č.); the European Research Council (ERC: 724530) to T.Č.; Thüringer Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Digitale Gesellschaft, Thüringer Aufbaubank and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF) to S.T., I.T.L. and T.Č.; the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society (Sir Henry Dale fellowship), the Shirley Foundation, the Patrick Wild Centre, the RS MacDonald Charitable Trust Seedcorn grant, and the Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain to N.R.; and the University of Dundee and Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (PaLS initiative) to T.Č
Dr Nathalie Rochefort said “This minimally invasive approach will enable neuroscientists to investigate functions of neurons in deep structures of the brain of behaving animals: without perturbing the neuronal circuits in action, it will be possible to reveal the activity of these neuronal circuits while the animal is exploring an environment or learning a new task.”