Summary: Researchers have developed a groundbreaking “nanosheet incorporated into light-curable resin” (NIRE) method, enabling unprecedented large-scale and long-term observation of neuronal activity in awake mice. This innovative technique utilizes fluoropolymer nanosheets combined with a light-curable resin to create extensive cranial windows, allowing for detailed study of distant brain regions simultaneously.
The NIRE method offers stronger, more transparent windows with minimal mechanical stress, facilitating high-resolution imaging of neural structures and activities over periods longer than six months. This advancement promises to deepen our understanding of neuroplasticity, learning processes, and neurodegenerative diseases by allowing scientists to track the brain’s complex functions in real time.
Key Facts:
- The NIRE method uses biocompatible materials to produce larger cranial windows, enabling observation from the parietal cortex to the cerebellum.
- This technique maintains window transparency for extended periods, reducing motion artifacts in awake mice and allowing for sub-micrometer resolution imaging.
- It opens new avenues for researching neuroplasticity, learning, and neurodegeneration over long-term periods in living, behaving animals.
Source: NINS
The human brain has billions of neurons. Working together, they enable higher-order brain functions such as cognition and complex behaviors.
To study these higher-order brain functions, it is important to understand how neural activity is coordinated across various brain regions. Although techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are able to provide insights into brain activity, they can show only so much information for a given time and area.
Two-photon microscopy involving the use of cranial windows is a powerful tool for producing high-resolution images but conventional cranial windows are small, making it difficult to study distant brain regions at the same time.
Now, a team of researchers led by the Exploratory Research Center on Life and Living Systems (ExCELLS) and the National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS) have introduced a new method for in vivo brain imaging, enabling large-scale and long-term observation of neuronal structures and activities in awake mice.
This method is called the “nanosheet incorporated into light-curable resin” (NIRE) method, and it uses fluoropolymer nanosheets covered with light-curable resin to create larger cranial windows.
“The NIRE method is superior to previous methods because it produces larger cranial windows than previously possible, extending from the parietal cortex to the cerebellum, utilizing the biocompatible nanosheet and the transparent light-curable resin that changes in form from liquid to solid,” says lead author Taiga Takahashi of the Tokyo University of Science and ExCELLS.
In the NIRE method, light-curable resin is used to fix polyethylene-oxide–coated CYTOP (PEO-CYTOP), a bioinert and transparent nanosheet, onto the brain surface.
This creates a “window” that fits tightly onto the brain surface, even the highly curved surface of the cerebellum, and maintains its transparency for a long time with little mechanical stress, allowing researchers to observe multiple brain regions of living mice.
“Additionally, we showed that the combination of PEO-CYTOP nanosheets and light-curable resin enabled the creation of stronger cranial windows with greater transparency for longer periods of time compared with our previous method. As a result, there were few motion artifacts, that is, distortions in the images caused by the movements of awake mice,” says Takahashi.
The cranial windows allowed for high-resolution imaging with sub-micrometer resolution, making them suitable for observing the morphology and activity of fine neural structures.
“Importantly, the NIRE method enables imaging to be performed for a longer period of more than 6 months with minimal impact on transparency. This should make it possible to conduct longer-term research on neuroplasticity at various levels—from the network level to the cellular level—as well as during maturation, learning, and neurodegeneration,” explains corresponding author Tomomi Nemoto at ExCELLS and NIPS.
This study is a significant achievement in the field of neuroimaging because this novel method provides a powerful tool for researchers to investigate neural processes that were previously difficult or impossible to observe.
Specifically, the NIRE method’s ability to create large cranial windows with prolonged transparency and fewer motion artifacts should allow for large-scale, long-term, and multi-scale in vivo brain imaging.
“The method holds promise for unraveling the mysteries of neural processes associated with growth and development, learning, and neurological disorders.
“Potential applications include investigations into neural population coding, neural circuit remodeling, and higher-order brain functions that depend on coordinated activity across widely distributed regions,” says Nemoto.
In sum, the NIRE method provides a platform for investigating neuroplastic changes at various levels over extended periods in animals that are awake and engaged in various behaviors, which presents new opportunities to enhance our understanding of the brain’s complexity and function.
About this neuroimaging and neuroscience research news
Author: Hayao KIMURA
Source: NINS
Contact: Hayao KIMURA – NINS
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Large-scale cranial window for in vivo mouse brain imaging utilizing fluoropolymer nanosheet and light-curable resin” by Tomoki Shimizu et al. Communications Biology
Abstract
Large-scale cranial window for in vivo mouse brain imaging utilizing fluoropolymer nanosheet and light-curable resin
Two-photon microscopy enables in vivo imaging of neuronal activity in mammalian brains at high resolution. However, two-photon imaging tools for stable, long-term, and simultaneous study of multiple brain regions in same mice are lacking.
Here, we propose a method to create large cranial windows covering such as the whole parietal cortex and cerebellum in mice using fluoropolymer nanosheets covered with light-curable resin (termed the ‘Nanosheet Incorporated into light-curable REsin’ or NIRE method).
NIRE method can produce cranial windows conforming the curved cortical and cerebellar surfaces, without motion artifacts in awake mice, and maintain transparency for >5 months. In addition, we demonstrate that NIRE method can be used for in vivo two-photon imaging of neuronal ensembles, individual neurons and subcellular structures such as dendritic spines.
The NIRE method can facilitate in vivo large-scale analysis of heretofore inaccessible neural processes, such as the neuroplastic changes associated with maturation, learning and neural pathogenesis.
