The ability to see individual neurons in detail in the brains of conscious, behaving animals seems like the stuff of science fiction. But in the current issue of Neuron, Professor Winfried Denk and colleagues report that they have done just that. In a stunning technical achievement, they have built a tiny, powerful microscope onto the head of a rat.
In order to do so, Denk's research team had to overcome a number of technical challenges:
* The microscope had to be small and light enough for the rat to carry it on its head.
* The neurons had to be illuminated and the images had to be sent to a computer.
* The jiggling of the images when the animal moved had to be minimized.
Their efforts finally resulted in a miniaturized microscope that was surgically mounted on the animal's head. The neurons were illuminated by light shone through an optical fiber and the same optical fiber was also used for acquiring images of the targeted area.
This "brain with a view" allows researchers to monitor changes in neurons that might be associated with sleep or learning. Thus, researchers will now be able to watch what goes on in a rat's brain as it happens.
[Contact: Winfried Denk]
27-Sep-2001
