November 2011 Americas and Asia Pacific Editions Cover Picture and Story
Cover Story
This three-dimensional image of a mouse brain showing structures down to 4 mm deep was captured using a breakthrough microscope imaging technique that renders fixed tissue transparent and allows ultra-deep imaging within tissue. The technique, developed at RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan, involves the use of a specially-formulated reagent called SCALEVIEW-A2, which makes biological samples optically transparent while preserving fluorescent signals, along with the super-long-working-distance SCALEVIEW immersion 25x MPE objective, which has been engineered to match the refractive index of the new reagent. Both are available from Olympus.
The image is significant because imaging and mapping brain structures and mechanisms are among the most important areas of scientific endeavor today. Connectomics studies strive to elucidate the connections among nerve cells in mouse brain, but until now, imaging deep within tissue has been challenging. Brain tissue had to be sliced, causing damage that made it difficult to reconstruct exactly how nervous system structures were interconnected. In addition, the brain’s gray matter was not conducive to deep imaging. Using this new technique, though, scientists have published high-resolution images that clearly show structures extending from the brain surface to the hippocampus, a crucial area for memory function. These brain imaging tools may contribute to scientists’ understanding of the brain’s underlying architecture, and ultimately may help us better understand such phenomena as comprehension, emotion and memory.
The image shows mouse brain down to 4 mm deep, transgenically encoded to express YFP in neurons. It was obtained using an Olympus FluoView FV1000-MPE multiphoton microscope system with the SCALEVIEW immersion 25x MPE objective and SCALEVIEW-A2 optical clearing agent. Raw image data courtesy of Hiroshi Harna, Hiroshi Kurokawa and Atshushi Miyawaki, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Laboratory for Cell Function Dynamics, Japan. The image was processed in Imaris software (Bitplane) with a combination of raw image blending, filament tracing, and isosurface rendering to identify spheroid cell bodies and elongated processes.
For more information, contact Olympus America Inc., 3500 Corporate Parkway, PO Box 610, Center Valley, PA, 18034 USA; phone 1-484-896-5000; email microscopy@olympus.com or visit www.olympusamerica.com/objectives
