New High-speed Microscope Camera Captures Brain Signals

The Kilohertz two-photon fluorescence microscope is a new high-speed camera, designed by neuroscientists and engineers at University of California, Berkeley, which can capture fleeting images of brain activity as it is occurring.

The new imaging technique combines all-optical laser scanning and two-photon fluorescence microscopy to create a cutting edge microscope that can image a two dimensional slice through a region of a mouse brain up to 3000 times a second.

This novel technique will allow neuroscientists to track electro-chemical signals as they travel throughout the brain, ultimately aiding the search for the occurrence of transmission problems associated with disease.

This is really exciting, because we are now able to do something that people really weren’t able to do before

lead researcher Na Ji, a UC Berkeley associate professor of physics and of molecular and cell biology. Source: ScienceDaily