Watching the brain think, all the way down: a rebuilt microscope sees single cells fire through the whole cortex

Deep brain tissue scatters light, so microscopes have mostly watched neurons near the surface — the deep circuits that help turn signals into behaviour stayed blurry. A Rockefeller University team led by Alipasha Vaziri rebuilt the best deep-imaging method, three-photon microscopy, from a clean slate — rethinking how its laser pulses are timed, delivered and scanned — and the new platform, called TrUDI, is about 250 times more efficient. In a paper in Nature Methods, it imaged right through a mouse's entire cortex and recorded single neurons firing in deep regions such as the hippocampus and striatum, without removing any tissue above them and without overheating the brain.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation