Gulati Srishti, Cao Vania Y, Otte Stephani
Inscopix Inc.
Inscopix Inc.;
J Vis Exp. 2017 Jun 13(124):55579. doi: 10.3791/55579.
In vivo circuit and cellular level functional imaging is a critical tool for understanding the brain in action. High resolution imaging of mouse cortical neurons with two-photon microscopy has provided unique insights into cortical structure, function and plasticity. However, these studies are limited to head fixed animals, greatly reducing the behavioral complexity available for study. In this paper, we describe a procedure for performing chronic fluorescence microscopy with cellular-resolution across multiple cortical layers in freely behaving mice. We used an integrated miniaturized fluorescence microscope paired with an implanted prism probe to simultaneously visualize and record the calcium dynamics of hundreds of neurons across multiple layers of the somatosensory cortex as the mouse engaged in a novel object exploration task, over several days. This technique can be adapted to other brain regions in different animal species for other behavioral paradigms.
体内回路和细胞水平的功能成像对于理解大脑活动至关重要。利用双光子显微镜对小鼠皮层神经元进行高分辨率成像,为深入了解皮层结构、功能和可塑性提供了独特视角。然而,这些研究仅限于头部固定的动物,极大地降低了可供研究的行为复杂性。在本文中,我们描述了一种在自由活动的小鼠中跨多个皮层层进行细胞分辨率慢性荧光显微镜检查的方法。我们使用了一台集成的小型化荧光显微镜,搭配植入的棱镜探头,在小鼠进行新物体探索任务的数天时间里,同时可视化并记录体感皮层多个层中数百个神经元的钙动力学。该技术可适用于不同动物物种的其他脑区及其他行为范式。