Chinese scientists use neural imaging to show changes in the brains of animals while they are awake

Chinese researchers have developed a microscopy technique to capture images of neurons in awake animals. This method, they say, allowed them to capture the rapidly changing dynamics in the neurons of mice running on wheels.

The new technique expands the possibilities of high-resolution microscopy, which was previously limited to imaging cultured cells, tissue sections or anesthetized animals.

“Neurons are best studied in their native state, where their functional and morphological dynamics support the natural behavior of animals,” the team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in a paper published last month in the journal Nature Methods.

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Neurons – nerve cells that send signals throughout the body that allow us to perform functions such as eating, walking and speaking – have specialized structures to support necessary functions such as communication and information integration that change over time.

Using high-resolution microscopy to capture images of animals exhibiting natural behavior remains challenging because any movement can result in image artifacts or distortions in the image.

Anesthesia used to study the neurons of living animals is not ideal because it alters the physiology of neuronal circuits.

To solve this problem, the team led by senior researcher Wang Kai at the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology introduced a new type of high-resolution microscopy – multiplex line scan microscopy with structured illumination.

The new two-color imaging technique is “immune to motion-related artifacts and enables longitudinal super-resolution imaging in the brains of awake and behaving animals whose heads are fixed.”