MIT researchers develop high-speed microscope to track brain activity

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a high-speed microscopy technique capable of recording the electrical activity of neurons across the entire brain of the zebrafish (Danio rerio). Published in the journal Nature Methods, this new methodology overcomes the temporal limitations of traditional calcium imaging, which measures intracellular calcium flows as an indirect indicator of neural activity but typically operates on a scale of seconds.

By directly detecting variations in electrical potential, scientists can now track signals at a millisecond scale. To achieve the necessary temporal resolution, the team modified a light-sheet microscope by increasing camera acquisition speeds and utilizing remote focal scrambling to accelerate three-dimensional volume scanning.

Lead author Ed Boyden, a neurotechnology professor at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, noted that understanding the brain requires observing how all neurons work together as an emerging whole. Co-author Jie Zhang added that because neurons process information via electrical activity, voltage imaging provides a more direct observation than the inherently slower calcium imaging methods.