in vivo imaging
in vivo imaging
The development of modern ultrafast lasers and transgenic fluorescent proteins provides the means to monitor (sub)cellular events in vivo. Two-photon microscopy allows us to see quite deeply into the brain at chosen intervals without disturbing it. An example from our own recent work goes almost 1000 microns into the brain.
Such single images are very striking, but it is repetitive in vivo fluorescent imaging that is potentially much more informative. We applied this method to murine models of Alzheimer's disease, in order to study the causes and consequences of neurodegeneration during disease progression. We re-imaged layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the cortex of a living mouse:
Recently we have started to use GCaMP6 to image orientation selectivity in the mouse visual cortex using the Classic drifting grating technique. Imaging the basic phenomenon is amazing itself.
Here you see many cells tagged with the GECI, the eg and blue cells showed different orientation activations during 4 cycles of drifting grating stimulation. The movie is fun to watch!