MIT Engineers Develop High-Speed Microscope to Image Electrical Activity Across Entire Brains
MIT engineers have developed a new microscope capable of imaging electrical activity in neurons across the entire brain of an organism, specifically the zebrafish. This advancement, detailed in Nature Methods, modifies a light sheet microscope to achieve high-speed, high-volumetric rate imaging. Traditional methods like calcium imaging are too slow to capture individual neuronal impulses, while previous voltage imaging techniques were limited to small populations of neurons. The MIT team enhanced the microscope's image acquisition speed and scanning speed using remote refocusing, allowing it to scan the entire zebrafish brain 200 times per second. This enables researchers to observe millisecond-scale electrical activity, including single voltage spikes and rapid bursts, from neurons distributed throughout the brain. The technique has already revealed patterns of brain activation in response to stimuli like ultraviolet light, showing activity propagating across brain regions such as the optic tectum. 
