In current neuroscience research, the skull has to be removed or thinned to take microscopic images of the brain’s interior. Scientists have developed a microscope that can be viewed from the outside of the brain through the skull to see what’s going on inside the brain, without damaging the skull or soft tissue.
The Centre for Molecular Spectroscopy and Dynamics of South Korea invented a tool to draw microscopic images of the neural network of the brain of mice through the cranial brain.
The skull of the brain is very thick and uneven, so the light shining on it is easily refracted in all directions. The deeper the beam wants to reach, the higher the ratio of refraction.
During this process, the photons irradiated into the brain will be divided into the ballistics and the scattering photons. The former is the direct propagation of the part that is not refracted, and the latter is the scattered part of the photon, which will become the noise signal in the final photo. The deeper the area to be photographed, the greater the ratio of noise signals.
So, for now, imaging the brains of mice requires removing or thinning out the skulls.
The new “reflection matrix microscope” solves this problem. The microscope works with hardware and computational software to correct noise signals and produce clear images.
Whereas conventional imaging microscopes remove all noise light and retain only direct light signals, the new microscope records all the scattered light signals. The software algorithm is used to correct the scattering photon, and the optical error is corrected to a large extent. The researchers say the new microscope is 10 times more capable of correcting errors than normal microscopes.
Choi Wonshik, who led the study, said: “Reflection matrix microscopy is a new generation of technology that goes beyond the limits of traditional optical microscopy. It has deepened our understanding of how light travels in the scattered medium and broadened the range of applications of optical microscopy. Our microscopes are able to explore deep inside living tissue in a way that no other current technology can. This will greatly contribute to the early diagnosis of the disease and accelerate neurological research.”
The study was published in November in the journal Nature Communications.
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