New? ?tool? ?’could? ?help? ?improve? ?imaging? ?of? ?neuronal? ?activity’

New imaging technology has been created by a North Carolina State University team that could make it easier to monitor neuronal activity in future.

Collaborating with UNC-Chapel Hill, the university have developed a new method to help neuroscientists capture images of the brain at almost ten times the size that was previously possible.

Combining neuroscience and electrical engineering techniques, the work used a two-photon microscope to track fluorescence and see which neurons lit up when active in the brains of mice.

New lenses for the microscope were then developed to make it possible to scan much larger areas of the brain, increasing the scope from one square millimetre of the brain to more than 9.5 square millimeters.

This allowed them to simultaneously scan widely separated populations of neurons, thus giving a broader overview of the activity within the brain.

The researchers said the research addresses "a major barrier to progress in two-photon imaging of neuronal activity: the limited field of view".