Pawłowska Monika, Legutko Diana, Stefaniuk Marzena
Laboratory of Neurobiology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, 3 Pasteura St., 02-093 Warsaw, Poland.
Postepy Biochem. 2017;63(1):8-15.
One of the biggest challenges in neuroscience is to understand how brain operates. For this, it would be the best to image the whole brain with at least cellular resolution, preserving the three-dimensional structure in order to capture the connections between different areas. Most currently available high-resolution imaging techniques are based on preparing thin brain sections that are next photographed one by one and subsequently bigger structures are reconstructed. These techniques are laborious and create artifacts. Recent optical clearing methods allow to obtain literally transparent brains that can be imaged using light-sheet microscope. The present review summarizes the most popular optical clearing techniques, describing their different mechanisms and comparing advantages and disadvantages of different approaches, and presents the principle of light-sheet microscopy and its use in imaging. Finally, it gives examples of application of optical tissue clearing and light-sheet imaging in neuroscience and beyond it.
神经科学面临的最大挑战之一是了解大脑如何运作。为此，最好能以至少细胞分辨率对整个大脑进行成像，保留三维结构以捕捉不同区域之间的连接。目前大多数高分辨率成像技术都是基于制备薄脑切片，然后逐张拍照，随后重建更大的结构。这些技术既费力又会产生伪像。最近的光学透明方法能够获得真正透明的大脑，可使用光片显微镜进行成像。本综述总结了最流行的光学透明技术，描述了它们不同的机制，比较了不同方法的优缺点，并介绍了光片显微镜的原理及其在成像中的应用。最后，给出了光学组织透明和光片成像在神经科学及其他领域应用的实例。
