Author: Laura Sanders / Source: Science News
Using laser light, ballooning tissue and innovative genetic tricks, scientists are starting to force brains to give up their secrets.
By mixing and matching powerful advances in microscopy and cell biology, researchers have imaged intricate details of individual nerve cells in fruit flies and mice, and even controlled small groups of nerve cells in living mice.
The techniques, published in two new studies, represent big steps forward for understanding how the brain operates, says molecular neuroscientist Hongkui Zeng of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle.
“Without this kind of technology, we were only able to look at the soup level,” in which diverse nerve cells, or neurons, are grouped and analyzed together, she says. But the new studies show that nerve cells can be studied individually. That zoomed-in approach will begin to uncover the tremendous diversity that’s known to exist among cells, says Zeng, who was not involved in the research.
“That is where the field is going. It’s very exciting to see that technologies are now enabling us to do that,” she says.
These novel abilities came from multiple tools. At Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Va., physicist Eric Betzig and his colleagues had developed a powerful microscope that can quickly peer deep into layers of brain tissue. Called a lattice light sheet microscope, the rig sweeps a thin sheet of laser light down through the brain, revealing cells’ structures. But like any microscope, it hits a wall when structures get really small, unable to resolve the most minute aspects of the scene.
A trick that expands the tissue like a balloon under the microscope solved that problem. Developed in neuroscientist Edward Boyden’s lab at MIT, the method, called expansion microscopy, makes tiny samples easier to see by infusing them with a gel that swells. The gel preserves the tissue’s structure while also expanding it.
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